CHARACTERISTICS 



WOMEN. 



CHARACTERISTICS 



WOMEN, 

MORAL, POETICAL, AND HISTORICAL. 



BY MRS. JAMESON, 

ADTHOR OF "THE DIARY OF AN ENNTXYEE," "MEMOIRS UK 
FEMALE SOVEREIGNS," &C. 



FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION 



B S T N : 
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY. 

NEW YORK : J. C. DERBY. 






/5~" 




PREFACE 

TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



[n preparing for the press a second edition of this little work, the author 
has endeavored to render it more worthy of the approbation and kindly feeling 
with which it has been received ; she cannot better express her sense of both 
than by justifying, as far as it is in her power, the cordial and flattering 
tone of all the public criticisms. It is to the great name of Shakspeaf.e, 
that bond of sympathy among all who speak his language, and to the subject 
of the work, not to its own merits, that she attributes the success it lias 
met with, — success the more delightful, because, in truth, it was from the 
very first so entirely unlooked for, as to be a matter of surprise as well as 
of pleasure and gratitude. 

In this edition there arc many corrections, and some additions which the 
author hopes may be deemed improvements. She has been induced to insert 
several quotations at length, which were formerly only referred to, from 
observing that however familiar they may be to the mind of the reader, they 
are always recognized with pleasure — like dear domestic faces ; and if the 
memory fail at the moment to recall the lines or the sentiment to which the 
attention is directly required, few like to interrupt the course of thought, or 
undertake a journey from the sofa or garden-seat to the library, to hunt out 
the volume, the play, the passage, for themselves. 

When the first edition was sent to press, the author contemplated writing 
the life of Mrs. Siddons, with a reference to her art; and deferred the 
complete development of the character of Lady Macbeth, till she should be 
able to illustrate it by the impersonation and commentary of that grand and 
gifted actress ; but the task having fallen into other hands, the analysis of 
the character has been almost entirely re-written, as at first conceived, or 
rather restored to its original form. 

This little work, as it now stands, forms only part of a plan which the 
author hopes, if life be granted her, to accomplish ; — at all events, life, while 
it is spared, shall be devoted to its fulfilment. 



CONTENTS. 



paoe 

Introduction ix 

CHARACTERS OF INTELLECT. 

Portia 1 

Isabella 23 

Beatrice „ 37 

Rosalind 45 

CHARACTERS OP PASSION AND IMAGINATION. 

Juliet 53 

Helena 79 

-Perdita 95 

Viola 103 

Ophelia 109 

Miranda 125 

CHARACTERS OF THE AFFECTIONS. 

Hermione 137 

Desdemona 155 

Imogen 167 

Cordelia 189 



CONTENTS 
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS. 



Cleopatra . 
Octavia 
volumnia 

Constance of Bretagne 
Elinor of Guienne 
Blanche of Castile . 
^Margaret of Anjou . 
Katherine of Akragon 
Lady Macbeth . 



PAGE 

209 
243 
247 
259 
281 
283 
289 
297 
319 



INTRODUCTION. 



Scene — A Library. 



ALDA. 

You will not listen to me? 



1 do, with all the deference which befits a gentleman when a ladv 
holds forth on the virtues of her own sex. 

He is a parricide of his mother's name, 
And with an impious hand murders her lame, 
That wrongs the praise of women ; that dares write 
Libels on saints, or with foul ink requite 
The milk they lent us. 

Yours was the nobler birth, 
For you from man were made— man but of earth — 
The son of dust ! 



What's this? 

MEDON. 

" Only a rhyme I learned from one I allced withal ; " 't is ;i 



x INTRODUCTION. 

quotation from some old poet that has fixed itself in my memory — 
from Randolph, I think. 



' T is very justly thought, and very politely quoted, and my best 
curtesy is due to him and to you : — but now will you listen to me ? 



With most profound humility. 



Nay, then! I have done, unless you. will lay aside these mock airs 
of gallantry and listen to me for a moment ! Is it fair to bring a 
second-hand accusation against me, and not attend to my defence 1 



Well, I will be serious. 

ALDA. 

Do so, and let us talk like reasonable beings. 



Then tell me (as a reasonable woman you will not be affronted 
with the question), do you really expect that any one will read this 
little book of yours 1 



I might answer, that it has been a great source of amusement and 
interest to me for several months, and that so far I am content : but 
no one writes a book without a hope of finding readers, and I shall 
find a few. Accident first made me an authoress ; and not now, nor 
ever, have I written to flatter any prevailing fashion of the day for the 
sake of profit, though this is done, I know, by many who have less 
excuse for thus coining their brains. This little book was undertaken 
without a thought of fame or money : out of the fulness of my own 



INTRODUCTION. x , 

heart and soul have I written it. In the pleasure it has given me, 
in the new and various views of human nature it has opened to me, 
in the beautiful and soothing images it has placed before me, in the 
exercise and improvement of my own faculties, I have already been 
repaid : if praise or profit come beside, they come as a surplus. I 
should be gratified and grateful, but I have not sought for them, 
nor worked for them. Do you believe this 1 



I do : in this I cannot suspect you of affectation, for the profession 
of disinterestedness is uncalled for, and the contrary would be too far 
countenanced by the custom of the day to be matter of reserve or 
reproach. But how could you (saving the reverence due to a lady- 
authoress, and speaking as one reasonable being to another) choose 
such a threadbare subject 1 



What do you mean 1 



I presume you have written a book to maintain the superiority of 
your sex over ours; for so I judge by the names at the heads of 
some of your chapters ; women fit indeed to inlay heaven with stars, 
but, pardon me, very unlike those who at present walk upon this 
earth. 



Very unlike the fine ladies of your acquaintance, I grant you ; but 
as to maintaining the superiority, or speculating on the rights of 
women — nonsense ! why should you suspect me of such folly ? — it is 
quite out of date. Why should there be competition or comparison? 



Both are ill-judged and odious; but did you ever meet with a 
woman of the world, who did not abuse most heartily the whole 
race of men 1 



INTRODUCTION. 



Did you ever talk with a man of the world, who did not speak 
with levity or contempt of the whole human race of women 1 



Perhaps I might answer like Voltaire — "Helas! ils pourraient bien 
avoir raison tous deux." But do you thence infer that both are good 
for nothing 1 

ALDA. 

Thence I infer that the men of the world and the women of the 
world are neither of them — good for much. 

MEDON. 

And you have written a book to make them better ' 

ALDA. 

Heaven forbid ! else I were only fit for the next lunatic asylum. 
Vanity run mad never conceived such an impossible idea. 



Then, in few words, what is the subject, and what the object oi 
your book 1 



I have endeavored to illustrate the various modifications of which 
the female character is susceptible, with their causes and results. My 
life has been spent in observing and thinking ; I have had, as you 
well know, more opportunities for the first, more leisure for the last, 
than have fallen to the lot of most people. What I have seen, felt, 
thought, suffered, has led me to form certain opinions. It appears to 
me that the condition of women in society, as at present constituted, 
is false in itself, and injurious to them, — that the education of 
women, as at present conducted, is founded in mistaken principles, 
and tends to increase fearfully the sum of misery and error in both 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

sexes ; but I do not choose presumptuously to fling these opinions in 
the face of the world, in the form of essays on morality, and treatises 
on education. I have rather chosen to illustrate certain positions by 
examples, and leave my readers to deduce the moral themselves, 
and draw their own inferences. 



And why have you not chosen your examples from real life 1 
you might easily have done so. You have not been a mere 
spectator, or a mere actor, but a lounger behind the scenes of 
existence — have even assisted hi preparing the puppets for the 
stage : you might have given us an epitome of your experience, 
instead of dreaming over Shakspeare. 



I might so, if I had chosen to become a female satirist, which 
1 will never be. 

MEDON. 

You would, at least, stand a better chance of being read. 



I am not sure of that. The vile taste for satire and personal 
gossip will not be eradicated, I suppose, while the elements of 
curiosity and malice remain in human nature ; but as a fashion ol 
literature, I think it is passing away ; — at all events it is not my 
forte. Long experience of what is called " the world," of the 
folly, duplicity, shallowness, selfishness, which meet us at every 
turn, too soon unsettles our youthful creed. If it only led to the 
knowledge of good and evil, it were well ; if it only taught us 
to despise the illusions and retire from the pleasures of the 
world, it would be better. But it destroys our belief — it dims our 
perception of all abstract truth, virtue, and happiness; it 'urns life 
into a jest, and a very dull one too. It makes us indifferent to 
beauty, and incredulous of goodness ; it teaches us to consider self 



xiv INTRODUCTION. 

as the centre on which all actions turn, and to which all motives 
are to be referred. 



But this being so, we must either revolve with these earthly 
natures, and round the same centre, or seek a sphere for ourselves, 
and dwell apart. 



I trust it is not necessary to do either. While we are yet 
young, and the passions, powers, and feelings, in their full activity, 
create to us a world within, we cannot look fairly on the world 
without : — all things then are good. When first we throw ourselves 
forth, and meet burs and briars on every side, which stick in our 
very hearts ; — and fair tempting fruits which turn to bitter ashes 
in the taste, then we exclaim with impatience, all things are 
evil. But at length comes the calm hour, when they who look 
beyond the superficies of things begin to discern their true 
bearings ; when the perception of evil, or sorrow, or sin, brings 
also the perception of some opposite good, which awakens our 
indulgence, or the knowledge of the cause which excites our pity. 
Thus it is with me. I can smile, — nay, I can laugh still, to 
see folly, vanity, absurdity, meanness, exposed by scornful wit, 
and depicted by others in fictions light and brilliant. But these 
veiy things, when I encounter the reality, rather make me sad 
than merry, and take away all the inclination, if I had the power, 
to hold them up to derision. 

MEDON. 

Unless, by doing so, you might correct them. 

ALDA. 

Correct them ! Show me that one human being who has beeh 
made essentially better by satire ! O no, no ! there is something 
in human nature which hardens itself against the lash — something in 
satire which excites only the lowest and worst of our propensities. 
That avowal in Pope — 



INTRODUCTION. 

I must be proud to see 
Men not afraid of God, afraid of me! 

-has ever filled me with terror and pity — 



From its truth perhaps 1 



From its arrogance, — for the truth is, that a vice never corrected 
a vice. Pope might be proud of the terror he inspired in those 
who feared no God ; in whom vanity was stronger than conscience ; 
out that terror made no individual man better ; and while he 
indulged his own besetting sin, he administered to the malignity 
of others. Your professed satirists always send me to think upon 
the opposite sentiment in Shakspeare, on " the mischievous foul 
sin of chiding sin. " I remember once hearing a poem of Barry 
Cornwall's (he read it to me-), about a strange winged creature 
that, having the lineaments of a man, yet preyed on a man, and 
afterwards coming to a stream to drink, and beholding his own 
face therein, and that he had made his prey of a creature like 
himself, pined away with repentance. So should those do, who 
having made themselves mischievous mirth out of the sins and 
sorrows of others, remembering their own humanity, and seeing 
within themselves the same lineaments — so should they grieve and 
pine away, self-punished. 



'Tis an old allegory, and a sad one — and but too much to the 
purpose. 



I abhor the spirit of ridicule — 1 dread it and I despise it. I 
abhor it because it is in direct contradiction to the mild and 
serious spirit of Christianity ; I fear it because we find that in 
rvery state of society in which it has prevailed as a fashion, and 



xvi INTRODUCTION. 

has given the tone to the manners and literature, it marked the 
moral degradation and approaching destruction of that society; and 
I despise it, hecause it is the usual resource of the shallow and 
the base mind, and, when wielded by the strongest hand with the 
purest intentions, an inefficient means of good. The spirit of 
satire, reversing the spirit of mercy which is twice blessed, seems 
to me twice accursed; — evil in those who indulge it — evil to those 
who are the objects of it. 



" Peut-etre fallait-il que la punition des imprudens et des faibles 
fut confiee a la malignite, car la pure vertu n'eut jamais et6 assez 
cruelle. " 

ALDA. 

That is a woman's sentiment. 

MEDON. 

True — it was ; and I have pleasure in reminding you that a female 
satirist by profession is yet an anomaly in the history of our 
literature, as a female schismatic is yet unknown in the history of 
our religion. But to what do you attribute the number of satirical 
women we meet in society 1 



Not to our nature; but to a state of society in which the 
levelling spirit of persiflage has been long a fashion; to the 
perverse education which fosters it ; to affections disappointed or 
unemployed, which embitter the temper ; to faculties misdirected 
or wasted, which oppress and irritate the mind ; to an utter 
ignorance of ourselves, and the common lot of humanity, combined 
with quick and refined perceptions and much superficial cultivation ; to 
frivolous habits which make serious thought a burthen, and serious 
feeling, a bane, if suppressed, — if betrayed, a ridicule. Women, 
generally speaking, are by nature too much subjected to suffering 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

in many forms — have too much of fancy and sensibility, and too 
much of that faculty which some philosophers call veneration, to 
be naturally satirical. — I have known but one woman eminently 
gifted in mind and person, who is also distinguished for powers of 
satire as bold as merciless ; and she is such a compound of all 
that nature can give of good, and all that society can teach of evil — 



That she reminds us of the dragon of old, which was generated 
between the sun-beams from heaven and the slime of earth. 



No such thing. Rather of the powerful and beautiful fairy 
Melusina, who had every talent and every charm under heaven ; but 
once in so many hours was fated to become a serpent. No, I return 
to my first position. It is not by exposing folly and scorning fools, 
that we make other people wiser, or ourselves happier. But to 
soften the heart by images and examples of the kindly and generous 
affections — to show how the human soul is disciplined and perfected 
by suffering — to prove how much of possible good may exist in 
things evil and perverted — how much hope there is for those who 
despair — how much comfort for those whom a heartless world has 
taught to contemn both others and themselves, and so put barriers to 

the hard, cold, selfish, mocking and levelling spirit of the day 

would I could do this! 



On the same principle, I suppose, that they have changed the 
treatment of lunatics ; and whereas they used to condemn poor 
distempered wretches to straw and darkness, stripes and a strait 
waistcoat, they now send them to sunshine and green fields, to 
wander in gardens among birds and flowers, and soothe them with 
soft music and kind flattering speech. 

ALDA. 

You laugh at me ! perhaps I deserve it. 



INTRODUCTION 

MEDON. 



No, in truth ; I am a little amused, but most honestly attentive : 
and perhaps wish I could think more like you. But to proceed : I 
allow that, with this view of the case, you could not well have chosen 
your illustrations from real life ; but why not from history ? 



As far as history could guide me, 1 have taken her with me in 
one or two recent publications, which all tend to the same object. 
Nor have I here lost sight of her ; but I have entered on a land 
where she alone is not to be trusted, and may make a pleasant 
companion but a most fallacious guide. To drop metaphor : history 
informs us that such things have been done or have occurred; but 
when we come to inquire into motives and characters, it is the most 
false and partial and unsatisfactory authority we can refer to. Women 
are illustrious in history, not from what they have been in themselves, 
but generally in proportion to the mischief they have done or caused. 
Those characters best fitted to my purpose are precisely those of 
which history never heard, or disdains to speak; of those which 
have been handed down to us by many different authorities under 
different aspects we cannot judge without prejudice ; in others there 
occur certain chasms which it is difficult to supply ; and hence 
inconsistencies we have no means of reconciling, though doubtless 
they might be reconciled if we knew the whole, instead of a part. 



But instance — instance ! 



Examples crowd upon me; but take the first that occurs. Do 
you remember that Duchesse de Longueville, whose beautiful picture 
we were looking at yesterday ? — the heroine of the Fronde 1 — 
think of that woman — bold, intriguing, profligate, vain, ambitious, 
factious ! — who made men rebels with a smile ; — or if that were 
not enough, the lady was not scrupulous, — apparently without any 
principle as without shame, nothing was too much! And then 



INTRODUCTION. six 

think of the same woman protecting the virtuous philosopher 
Arnauld, when he was denounced and condemned ; and from 
motives which her worst enemies could not malign, secreting him 
in her house, unknown even to her own servants — preparing his 
food herself, watching for his safety, and at length saving him. 
Her tenderness, her patience, her discretion, her disinterested 
benevolence, not only defied danger (that were little to a woman 
of her temper), but endured a lengthened trial, all the ennui 
caused by the necessity of keeping the house, continual self-control, 
and the thousand small daily sacrifices, which, to a vain, dissipated, 
proud, impatient woman, must have been hard to bear. Now if 
Shakspeare had drawn the character of the Duchesse de Longueville, 
he would have shown us the same individual woman in both 
situations : — for the same being, with the same faculties, and passions, 
and powers, it surely was : whereas in history, we see in one case a 
fury of discord, a woman without modesty or pity; and in the other 
an angel of benevolence, and a worshipper of goodness ; and nothing 
to connect the two extremes in our fancy. 



But these are contradictions which we meet on every page ot 
history, which make us giddy with doubt or sick with belief; 
and are the proper subjects of inquiry for the moralist and the 
philosopher. 



I cannot say that professed moralists and philosophers did much 
to help me out of the dilemma ; but the riddle which history- 
presented I found solved in the pages of Shakspeare. There 
the crooked appeared straight ; the inaccessible, easy ; the incompre- 
hensible, plain. All I sought, I found there; his characters combine 
history and real life ; they are complete individuals, whose hearts 
and souls are laid open before us; all may behold, and all 
judge for themselves. 



But all will not judge alike. 



xx INTRODUCTION. 

ALDA. 

No ; and herein lies a part of their wonderful truth. We 
hear Shakspeare's men and women discussed, praised and dispraised, 
liked, disliked, as real human heings; and in forming our opinions 
of them, we are influenced by our own characters, habits of thought, 
prejudices, feelings, impulses, just as we are influenced with regard 
to our acquaintances and associates. 

MEDON. 

But we are then as likely to misconceive and misjudge them 

ALDA. 

Yes, if we had only the same imperfect means of studying 
them. But we can do with them what we cannot do with real 
people : we can unfold the whole character before us, stripped of 
all pretensions of self-love, all disguises of manner. We can 
take leisure to examine, to analyze, to correct, our own impressions, 
to watch the rise and progress of various passions — we can hate, 
love, approve, condemn, without offence to others, without pain to 
ourselves. 



In this respect they may be compared to those exquisite anatomical 
preparations of wax, which those who could not without disgust 
and horror dissect a real specimen, may study, and learn the 
mysteries of our frame, and all the internal workings of the 
wondrous machine of life. 



And it is the safer and the better way — for us at least. But 
look — that brilliant rain-drop trembling there in the sunshine 
suggests to me another illustration. Passion, when we contemplate 
't through the medium of imagination, is like a ray of light 
transmitted through a prism ; we can calmly, and with undazzled 
eve, study its complicate nature, and analyze its variety of tints ; 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

but passion brought home to us in its reality, through our own 
feelings and experience, is like the same ray transmitted through 
a lens, — blinding, burning, consuming where it falls. 



Your illustration is the most poetical, I allow ; but not the most 
just. But tell me, is the ground you have taken sufficiently large '? 
— is the foundation you have chosen strong enough to bear the 
moral superstructure you raise upon it 1 You know the prevalent 
idea is, that Shakspeare's women are inferior to his men. This 
assertion is constantly repeated, and has been but tamely refuted. 



Professor Richardson ?- 



He is as dry as a stick, and his refutation not successful even 
as a piece of logic. Then it is not sufficient for critics to assert 
this inferiority and want of variety : they first assume the fallacy, 
then argue upon it. Cibber accounts for it from the circumstance 
that all the female parts in Shakspeare's time were acted by boys 
— there were no women on the stage ; and Mackenzie, who ought 
to have known better, says that he was not so happy in his 
delineations of love and tenderness, as of the other passions; because 
forsooth, the majesty of his genius could not stoop to the refinements 
of delicacy ; — preposterous ! 



Stay ! before we waste epithets of indignation let us consider. 
If these people mean that Shakspeare's women are inferior in 
power to his men, I grant it at once ; for in Shakspeare the male 
and female characters bear precisely the same relation to each other 
that they do in nature and in society — they are not equal in 
prominence or in power — they are subordinate throughout 
Richardson remarks, that " if situation influences the mind, and if 
uniformity of conduct be frequently occasioned by uniformity of 



xxii INTRODUCTION. 

condition, there must be a greater diversity of male than of 
female characters," — which is true; add to this, our limited sphere 
of action, consequently of experience, — the habits of self-control 
rendering the outward distinctions of character and passion less 
striking and less strong — all this we see in Shakspeare as in nature : 
for instance, Juliet is the most impassioned of his female characters, 
but what are her passions compared to those which shake the soul 
of Othello'? 

li Even as the dew-drop on the myrtle-leaf 
To the vex'd sea." 

Look at Constance, frantic for the loss of her son — then look at 
Lear, maddened by the ingratitude of his daughters: why it is the 
west wind bowing those aspen tops that •wave before our window, 
compared to the tropic hurricane, when forests crash and burn, and 
mountains tremble to their bases 



True; and Lady Macbeth, with all her soaring ambition, her vigor 
of intellect, her subtlety, her courage, and her cruelty' — what is she, 
compared to Richard IH. 1 



I will tell you what she is — she is a woman. Place Lady 
Macbeth in comparison with Richard III., and you see at once 
the essential distinction between masculine and feminine ambition — 
though both in extreme, and overleaping all restraints of conscience 
or mercy. Richard says of himself, that he has " neither pity, 
love, nor fear ; " Lady Macbeth is susceptible of all three. You 
smile ! but that remains to be proved. The reason that Shakspeare's 
wicked women have such a singular hold upon our fancy, is from 
the consistent preservation of the feminine character, which renders 
them more terrible, because more credible and intelligible — not like 
those monstrous caricatures we meet with in history — 



In nistory ? — this is new 



INTRODUCTION 



Yes! I repeat, in history, where certain isolated facts and actions 
are recorded, without any relation to causes, or motives, or connecting 
feelings; and pictures exhibited, from which the considerate mind 
turns in disgust, and the feeling heart has no relief but in positive, 
and I may add, reasonable incredulity. I have lately seen one of 
Correggio's finest pictures, in which the three Furies are represented, 
not as ghastly deformed hags, with talons, and torches, and snaky 
hair, but as young women, with fine luxuriant forms and regular 
features, and a single serpent wreathing the tresses like a bandeau 
— but such countenances ! — such a hideous expression of malice, 
cunning, and cruelty ! — and the effect is beyond conception appalling. 
Leonardo da Vinci worked upon the same grand principle of art 
in his Medusa — 

Where it is less the horror than the grace 
Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone — 

* * * * * * 

'Tis the melodious tints of beauty thrown 
Athwart the hue of guilt and glare of pain, 
That humanize and harmonize file strain. 

And Shakspeare, who understood all truth, worked out his 
conceptions on the same principle, having said himself, that " proper 
deformity shows not in the fiend so horrid as in woman." Hence 
it is that whether he portrayed the wickedness founded in perverted 
power, as in Lady Macbeth ; or the wickedness founded in 
weakness, as in Gertrude, Lady Anne, or Cressida, he is the more 
fearfully impressive, because we cannot claim for ourselves an 
exemption from the same nature, before which, in its corrupted 
state, we tremble with horror or shrink with disgust. 



Do you remember that some of the commentators of Shakspeare 
have thought it incumbent on their gallantry to express their utter 
contempt for the scene between Richard and Lady Anne, as ? 
monstrous and incredible libel on your sex. 



INTRODUCTION 



They might have spared themselves the trouble. Lady Anne is 
just one of those women whom we see walking in crowds thiougb 
the drawing-rooms of the world — the puppets of habit, the fools of 
fortune, without any particular inclination for vice, or any steady 
principle of virtue ; whose actions are inspired by vanity, not 
affection, and regulated by opinion, not by conscience : who are good 
while there is no temptation to be otherwise, and ready victims of 
the first soliciting to evil. In the case of Lady Anne, we are 
startled by the situation : not three months a widow, and following 
to the sepulchre the remains of a husband and a father, she is met 
and wooed and won by the very man who murdered them. In such 
a case it required perhaps either Richard or the arch-fiend himself 
to tempt her successfully ; but in a less critical moment, a far less 
subtle and audacious seducer would have sufficed. Cressida is another 
modification of vanity, weakness, and falsehood, drawn in stronger 
colors. The world contains many Lady Amies and Cressidas, polished 
and refined externally, whom chance and vanity keep right, whom 
chance and vanity lead wrong, just as it may happen. When 
we read in history of the enormities of certain women, perfect 
scarecrows and ogresses, we can safely, like the Pharisee in 
Scripture, hug ourselves in our secure virtue, and thank God that 
we are not as others are : — but the wicked women in Shakspeare 
are portrayed with such perfect consistency and truth, that they 
leave us no such resource — they frighten us into reflection — they 
make us believe and tremble. On the other hand, his amiable 
women are touched with such exquisite simplicity — they have so 
little external pretension — and are so unlike the usual heroines of 
tragedy and romance, that they delight us more " than all the 
nonsense of the beau-ideal!" We are flattered by the perception 
of our own nature in the rnidst of so many charms and virtues : 
not only are they what we could wish to be, or ought to be, 
but what we persuade ourselves we might be, or would be, under 
a different and a happier state of things, and, perhaps, some time 
or other may be. They are not stuck up, like the cardinal 
virtues, all in a row, for us to admire and wonder at — they are 



INTRODUCTION. xxv 

not mere poetical abstractions — nor (as they have been termed) 
mere abstracts of the affections, — 

But common clay ta'cn from the common earth, 
Moulded by God, and tempted by the tears 
Of angels, to the perfect form of — woman. 

MEDON. 

Beautiful lines ! — Where are they ' 



I quote from memory, and I am afraid inaccurately, from a poem 
of Alfred Tennyson's. 



Well, between argument, and sentiment, and logic, and poetry, 
you are making out a very plausible case. I think with you, 
that, in the instances you have mentioned (a Lady Macbeth and 
Richard, Juliet and Othello, and others), the want of comparative 
power is only an additional excellence ; but to go to an opposite 
extreme of delineation, we must allow that there is not one of 
Shakspeare's women that, as a dramatic character, can be compared 
to Falstaff 



No ; because anything like Falstaff in the form of woman — any 
such compound of wit, sensuality, and selfishness, unchecked by the 
moral sentiments and the affections, and touched with the same 
vigorous painting, would be a gross and monstrous caricature. If 
it could exist in nature we might find it in Shakspeare; but a 
moment's reflection shows us that it would be essentially an 
impossible combination of faculties in a female. 



It strikes me, however, that his humorous women are feebly 
drawn, in comparison with some of the female wits of other writers. 



INTRODUCTION 



Because his women of wit and humor are not introduced for 
the sole purpose of saying brilliant things, and displaying the wit 
of the author ; they are, as I will show you, real, natural women, 
in whom wit is only a particular and occasional modification of 
intellect. They are all, in the first place, affectionate, thinking 
beings, and moral agents ; and then witty, as if by accident, or 
as the Duchesse de Chaulnes said of herself, " par la grace de 
Dieu " As to humor, it is carried as far as possible in Mrs. 
Quickly ; in the termagant Catherine ; in Maria, in " Twelfth 
Night ; " in Juliet's nurse ; in Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page. What 
can exceed in humorous naivete, Mrs. Quickly's upbraiding Falstaff, 
and her concluding appeal — " Didst thou not kiss me, and bid me 
fetch thee thirty shillings 1 " Is it not exquisite — irresistible ? Mrs. 
Ford and Mrs. Page are both " merry wives," but how perfectly 
discriminated ! Mrs. Ford has the most good nature — Mrs. Page is 
the cleverer of the two, and has more sharpness in her tongue, 
more mischief in her mirth. In all these instances I allow that 
the humor is more or less vulgar; but a humorous woman, whether 
in high or low life, has always a tinge of vulgarity. 



I should like to see that word vulgar properly defined, and its 
meaning limited — at present it is the most arbitrary word in the 
language. 



Yes, like the word romantic, it is a convenient "exploding 
word," and in its general application signifies nothing more than 
" see how much finer I am than other people ! " * but in literature 
and character I shall adhere to the definition of Madame de 
Stael, who uses the word vulgar as the reverse of poetical. 
Vulgarity (as I wish to apply the word) is the negative in all 
things. In literature, it is the total absence of elevation and depth 

• See Foster's Essay on the application of the word romantic. — Essays, voi. i. 



INTRODUCTION. xxvii 

in the ideas, and of elegance and delicacy in the expression of 
them. In character, it is the absence of truth, sensibility, and 
reflection. The vulgar in manner, is the result of vulgarity of 
character ; it is grossness, hardness, or affectation. — If you would 
see how Shakspeare has discriminated, not only different degrees, 
but different kinds of plebeian vulgarity in woman, you have only 
to compare the nurse in Romeo and Juliet with Mrs Quickly. 
On the whole, if there are people who, taking the strong and 
essential distinction of sex into consideration, still maintain that 
Shakspeare's female characters are not, in truth, in variety, in 
power, equal to his men, I think I shall prove the contrary 



I observe that you have divided your illustrations into classes; 
but shades of character so melt into each other, and the various 
faculties and powers are so blended and balanced, that all 
classification must be arbitrary. I am at a loss to conceive where 
you have drawn the line; here, at the head of your first chapter, 
I find "Characters of Intellect" — do you call Portia intellectual, 
and Hermione and Constance not so 1 



I know that Schlegel has said that it is impossible to arrange 
Shakspeare's characters in classes : yet some classification was 
necessary for my purpose. I have therefore divided them into 
characters in which intellect and wit predominate ; characters in 
which fancy and passion predominate ; and characters in which the 
moral sentiments and affections predominate. The historical 
characters I have considered apart, as requiring a different mode 
of illustration. Portia I regard as a perfect model of an 
intellectual woman, in whom wit is tempered by sensibility, and 
fancy regulated by strong reflection. It is objected to her, to 
Beatrice, and others of Shakspeare's women, that the display of 
intellect is tinged with a coarseness of manner belonging to the 
age in which he wrote. To remark that the conversation and 
letters of highbred and virtuous women of that time were more 



xxviii INTRODUCTION. 

bold and frank in expression than any part of the dialogue 
appropriated to Beatrice and Rosalind, may excuse it to our 
judgment, but does not reconcile it to our taste. Much has been 
said, and more might be said on this subject — but I would rather 
not discuss it. It is a mere difference of manner which is to 
be regretted, but has nothing to do with the essence of the 
character. 



I think you have done well in avoiding the topic altogether ; but 
between ourselves, do you really think that the refinement of manner, 
the censorious, hypocritical, verbal scrupulosity, which is carried so 
far in this " picked age" of ours, is a true sign of superior refinement 
of taste, and purity of morals? Is it not rather a whiting of the 
sepulchre 1 I will not even allude to individual instances whom we 
both know, but does it not remind you, on the whole, of the tone 
of French manners previous to the revolution — that " decence," which 
Horace Walpole so admired,* veiling the moral degradation, the 
inconceivable profligacy of the higher classes 1 — Stay — I have not yet 
done — not to you, but for you, I will add thus much: — our modern 
idea of delicacy apparently attaches more importance to words than 
to things — to manners than to morals. You will hear people inveigh 
against the improprieties of Shakspeare, with Don Juan, or one of 
those infernal French novels — I beg your pardon — lying on their 
toilet table. Lady Florence is shocked at the sallies of Beatrice, and 
Beatrice would certainly stand aghast to see Lady Florence dressed 
for Almack's ; so you see in both cases the fashion makes the 
indecorum. Let her ladyship new model her gowns ! 



Well, well, leave Lady Florence — I would rather hear you defend 
Shakspeare. 

MEDON. 

I think it is Coleridge who so finely observes, that Shakspeare 

* Correspondence, vol. iii. 



INTRODUCTION. xxix 

ever kept the high road of human life, whereon all travel, that he 
did not pick out by-paths of feeling and sentiment; in him we have 
no moral highwaymen, and sentimental thieves and rat-catchers, and 
interesting villains, and amiable, elegant adulteresses — a-Ja-mode 
Germanorum — no delicate entanglements of situation, in which the 
grossest images are presented to the mind disguised under the 
superficial attraction of style and sentiment. He flattered no bad 
passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue, trifled with no just 
and generous principle. He can make us laugh at folly, and shudder 
at crime, yet still preserve our love for our fellow beings, and our 
reverence for ourselves. He has a lofty and a fearless trust in his 
own powers, and in the beauty and excellence of virtue ; and with 
his eye fixed on the lode-star of truth, steers us triumphantly among 
shoals and quicksands, where with any other pilot we had been 
wrecked : — for instance, who but himself would have dared to bring 
into close contact two such characters as Iago and Desdemona 1 
Hail the colors in which he has arrayed Desdemona been one atom 
less transparently bright and pure, the charm had been lost; she 
could not have borne the approximation : some shadow from the 
overpowering blackness of his character must have passed over the 
sunbright purity of hers. For observe that Iago's disbelief in the 
virtue of Desdemona is not pretended, it is real. It arises from his 
total want of faith in all virtue ; he is no more capable of conceiving 
goodness, than she is capable of conceiving evil. To the brutish 
coarseness and fiendish malignity of this man, her gentleness appears 
only a contemptible weakness; her purity of affection, which saw 
" Othello's visage in his mind," only a perversion of taste ; her 
bashful modesty, only a cloak for evil propensities; so he represents 
them with all the force of language and self-conviction, and we 
are obliged to listen to him. He rips her to pieces before us — 
he would have bedeviled an angel ! yet such is the unrivalled, 
though passive delicacy of the delineation, that it can stand it 
unhurt, untouched ! It is wonderful ! — yet natural as it is wonderful ! 
After all, there are people in the world, whose opinions and 
feelings are tainted by an habitual acquaintance with the evil side 
of society, though in action and intention they remain right; and 
who, without the real depravity of heart and malignity of intention 



xxx INTRODUCTION. 

of Iago, judge as he does of the characters and productions of 
others. 



Heavens bless me from such critics ! yet if genius, youth, and 
innocence could not escape unslurred, can I hope to do so 1 1 
pity from my soul the persons you allude to — for to such minds 
there can exist few uncontaminated sources of pleasure, either in 
nature or in art. 



Aye — " the perfumes of Paradise were poison to the Dives, and 
made them melancholy. " * You pity them, and they will sneer 
at you. But what have we here 1 — " Characters of Imagination — 
Juliet — Viola ; " are these romantic young ladies the pillars which 
are to sustain your moral edifice 1 Are they to serve as examples 
or as warnings for the youth of this enlightened age '? 

ALDA. 

As warnings of course — what else ? 

MEDON. 

Against the dangers of romance 1 — but where are they ? 
"Vraiment," as B. Constant says, "je ne vois pas qu'en fait 
d'enthousiasme, le feu soit a la maison. " Where are they — 
these disciples of poetry and romance, these victims of disinterested 
devotion and believing truth, these unblown roses — all conscience 
and tenderness — whom it is so necessary to guard against too 
much confidence in others, and too little in themselves — where are 
they? 



Wandering in the Elysian fields, I presume, with the romantic 
young gentlemen, who are too generous, too zealous in defence 

* An Oriental proverb. 



INTRODUCTION. xxxi 

of innocence, too enthusiastic in their admiration of virtue, too 

violent in their hatred of vice, too sincere in friendship, too 

faithful in love, too active and disinterested in the cause of 
truth — 



Very fair ! But seriously, do you think it necessary to guard 
young people, in this selfish and calculating age, against an excess 
of sentiment and imagination 1 Do you allow no distinction 
between the romance of exaggerated sentiment, and the romance 
of elevated thought? Do you bring cold water to quench the 
smouldering ashes of enthusiasm 1 Methinks it is rather superfluous ; 
and that another doctrine is needed to withstand the heartless 
system of expediency which is the favorite philosophy of the day. 
The warning you speak of may be gently hinted to the few who 
are in danger of being misled by an excess of the generous 
impulses of fancy and feeling ; but need hardly, I think, be 
proclaimed by sound of trumpet amid the mocks of the world. 
No, no ; there are young women in these days, but there is no 
such thing as youth — the bloom of existence is sacrificed to a 
fashionable education, and where we should find the rose-buds of 
the spring, we see only the full-blown, flaunting, precocious roses 
of the hot-bed. 



Blame then that forcing system of education, the most pernicious, 
the most mistaken, the most far-reaching in its miserable and 
mischievous effects, that ever prevailed in this world. The custom 
which shut up women in convents until they were married, and 
then launched them innocent and ignorant on society, was bad 
enough ; but not worse than a system of education which inundates 
us with hard, clever, sophisticated girls, trained by knowing mothers, 
and all-accomplished governesses, with whom vanity and expediency 
take place of conscience and affection — (in other words, of romance) 
— " frutto senile in sul giovenil fiore ; " with feelings and passions 
suppressed or contracted, not governed by higher faculties and 



xxxii INTRODUCTION. 

purer principles ; with whom opinion — the same false honor which 
sends men out to fight duels — stands instead of the strength and 
the light of virtue within their own souls. Hence the strange 
anomalies of artificial society — girls of sixteen who are models of 
manner, miracles of prudence, marvels of learning, who sneer at 
sentiment, and laugh at the Juliets and the Imogens ; and matrons 
of forty, who, when the passions should he tame and wait upon the 
judgment, amaze the world and put us to confusion with their 
doing's. 



Or turn politicians to vary the excitement. — How I hate political 
women ! 

ALBA. 

Why do you hate them"? 

MEDON. 

Because they are mischievous. 

ALDA. 

But why are they mischievous? 



Why! — why are they mischievous? Nay, ask them, or ask the 
father of all mischief, who has not a more efficient instrument to 
further his designs in this world, than a woman run mad with 
politics. The number of political intriguing women of this time, 
whose boudoirs and drawing-rooms are the foyers of party-spirit, is 
another trait of resemblance between the state of society now and 
that which existed at Paris before the revolution. 



And do you think, like some interesting young lady in Miss 
Edgeworth's tales, that " women have nothing to do with politics ?" 
Do you mean to say that women are not capable of comprehending 
the principles of legislation, or of feeling an interest in the 



INTRODUCTION. xxxiii 

government and welfare of their country, or of perceiving and 
sympathizing in the progress of great events 1 — That they cannot 
feel patriotism! Believe me, when we do feel it, our patriotism, 
like our courage and our love, has a purer source than with you; 
for a man's patriotism has always some tinge of egotism, while a 
woman's patriotism is generally a sentiment, and of the noblest kind. 



I agree in all this ; and all this does not mitigate my horror 
of political women in general, who are, I repeat it, both mischievous 
and absurd. If you could but hear the reasoning in these feminine 
coteries ! but you never talk politics 



Indeed I do, when I can get any one to listen to me ; but I 
prefer listening. As for the evil you complain of, impute it to 
that imperfect education which at once cultivates and enslaves 
the intellect, and loads the memory, while it fetters the 
judgment. Women, however well read in history, never generalize 
in politics : never argue on any broad or general principle ; never 
reason from a consideration of past events, their causes and 
consequences. But they are always political through their affections, 
their prejudices, their personal liaisons, their hopes, their fears. 

MEDON. 

If it were no worse, I could stand it ; for that is at least feminine. 



But most mischievous. For hence it is that we make such blind 
partizans, such violent party women, and such wretched politicians. 
I never heard a woman talk politics, as it is termed, that I could 
not discern at once the motive, the affection, the secret bias, 
which swayed her opinions and inspired her arguments. If it 
appeared to the Grecian sage so " difficult for a man not to love 
himself, nor the things that belong to him, but justice only 1 " — 
how much more for women ! 



INTRODUCTION 



Then you think that a better education, based on truer moral 
principles, would render women more reasonable politicians, or at 
least give them some right to meddle with politics 1 



It would cease in that case to be meddling, as you term it, for 
it would be legitimized. It is easy to sneer at political and 
mathematical ladies, and quote Lord Byron — but leave those angry 
common-places to others ! — they do not come well from you. Do 
not force me to remind you, that women have achieved enough to 
silence them for ever ; * and how often must that truism be repeated, 
that it is not a woman's attainments which make her amiable or 
unamiable, estimable or the contrary, but her qualities 1 A time is 
coming, perhaps, when the education of women will be considered, 
with a view to their future destination as the mothers and nurses 
of legislators and statesmen, and the cultivation of their powers 
of reflection and moral feelings supersede the exciting drudgery by 
which they are now crammed with knowledge and accomplishments. 



Well — till that blessed period arrives, I wish you would leave us 
the province of politics to ourselves. I see here you have treated 
of a very different class of beings, " women in whom the affections 
and the moral sentiments predominate." Are there many such, think 
you, in the world 1 



Yes, many such; the development of affection and sentiment is 
more quiet and unobtrusive than that of passion and intellect, and 
less observed ; it is more common, too, therefore less remarked : but 



* In our own time, Madame de Stael, Mrs. Somerville, Harriet Martineau, Mrs. 
Marcet; we need not go back to the Rolands and Agnesi, nor even to our own 
Lucy Hutchinson. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

in women it generally gives the prevailing tone to the character, 
except where vanity has been made the ruling motive. 



Except ! I admire your exception ! You make in this case the 
rule the exception. Look round the world. 



You are not one of those with whom that common phrase " the 
world" signifies the circle, whatever and wherever that may be, 
which limits our individual experience — as a child considers the 
visible horizon as the bounds which shut in the mighty universe. 
Believe me, it is a sorry, vulgar kind of wisdom, if it be wisdom 
— a shallow and confined philosophy, if it be philosophy — which 
resolves all human motives and impulses into egotism in one sex, 
and vanity in the other. Such may be the way of the world, as 
it is called — the result of a very artificial and corrupt state of 
society, but such is not general nature, nor female nature. Would 
you see the kindly, self-sacrificing affections developed under their 
most honest but least poetical guise — displayed without any mixture 
of vanity, and unchecked in the display by any fear of being 
thought vain 1 — you will see it, not among the prosperous, the 
high-born, the educated, " far, far removed from want, and grief, and 
fear," but among the poor, the miserable, the perverted — among 
those habitually exposed to all influences that harden and deprave. 



1 believe it — nay, I know it; but how should you know it, or 
anything of the strange places of refuge which truth and nature 
have found in the two extremes of society ' 



It is no matter what 1 have seen and known ; and for the two 
extremes of society, I leave them to the author of Paul Clifford, 
and that most exquisite painter of living manners, Mrs. Gore. 
St. Giles's is no more nature than St. James's. I wanted character 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 

in its essential truth, not modified by particular customs, by fashion, 
by situation. I wished to illustrate the manner in which the 
affections would naturally display themselves in women — whether 
combined with high intellect, regulated by reflection, and elevated 
by imagination, or existing with perverted dispositions, or purified 
by the moral sentiments. I found all these in Shakspeare ; his 
delineations of women, in whom the virtuous and calm affections 
predominate, and triumph over shame, fear, pride, resentment, vanity, 
jealousy, — are particularly worthy of consideration, and perfect in 
their kind, because so quiet in their effect. 



Several critics have remarked in general terms on those beautiful 
pictures of female friendship, and of the generous affection of 
women for each other, which we find in Shakspeare. Other writers, 
especially dramatic writers, have found ample food for wit and satiric 
delineation in the littleness of feminine spite and rivalry, in the 
mean spirit of competition, the petty jealousy of superior charms, 
the mutual slander and mistrust, the transient leagues of folly or 
selfishness miscalled friendship — the result of an education which 
makes vanity the ruling principle, and of a false position in society. 
Shakspeare, who looked upon women with the spirit of humanity ; 
wisdom, and deep love, has done justice to their natural good 
tendencies and kindly sympathies. In the friendship of Beatrice and 
Hero, of Rosalind and Celia ; in the description of the girlish 
attachment of Helena and Hermia, he has represented truth and 
generous affection rising superior to all the usual sources of female 
rivalry and jealousy ; and with such force and simplicity, and obvious 
self-conviction, that he absolutely forces the some conviction on us. 



Add to these the generous feeling of Viola for her rival Olivia ; 
of Julia for her rival Sylvia ; of Helena for Diana ; of the old 
Countess for Helena, in the same play ; and even the affection of 
the wicked queen in Hamlet for the gentle Ophelia, which prove 
that Shakspeare thought — (and when did he ever think other than 



INTRODUCTION. xxxvii 

the truth ?) — that women have by nature " virtues that are merciful," 
and can be just, tender, and true to their sister women, whatever 
wits and worldlings, and satirists and fashionable poets, may say or 
sing of us to the contrary. There is another thing which he has 
most deeply felt and beautifully represented — the distinction between 
masculine and feminine courage. A man's courage is often a mere 
animal quality, and in its most elevated form a point of honor. But 
a woman's courage is always a virtue, because it is not required of 
us, it is not one of the means through which we seek admiration and 
applause ; on the contrary, we are courageous through our affections 
and mental energies, not through our vanity or our strength. A 
woman's heroism is always the excess of sensibility. Do you 
remember Lady Fanshawe putting on a sailor's jacket, and his " blue 
thrum cap," and standing at her husband's side, unknown to him 
during a sea-fight? There she stood, all bathed in tears, but fixed 
to that spot. Her husband's exclamation when he turned and 
discovered her — " Good God, that love should make such a change as 
this ! " is applicable to all the acts of courage which we read or hear 
of in women. This is the courage of Juliet when, after summing up 
all the possible consequences of her own act, till she almost maddens 
herself with terror, she drinks the sleeping potion ; and for that 
passive fortitude which is founded in piety and pure strength of 
affection, such as the heroism of Lady Russell and Gertrude de Wart, 
he has given us some of the noblest modifications of it in Hermione, 
in Cordelia, in Imogen, in Katherine of Arragon. 

MEDON. 

And what do you call the courage of Lady Macbeth ?• - 

My hands are of your color, but I shame 
To wear a heart so white. 



And again, 



A little water clears us of this deed, 
How easy is it then ! 



If this is not mere masculine indifference to blood and death, mere 
firmness of nerve, what is it 1 



INTRODUCTION. 



Not that, at least, which apparently you deem it ; you will find, 
if you have patience to read me to the end, that I have judged 
Lady Macbeth very differently. Take these frightful passages with 
the context — take the whole situation, and you will see that it is no 
such thing. A friend of mine truly observed, that if Macbeth had 
been a ruffian without any qualms of conscience, Lady Macbeth 
would have been the one to shrink and tremble ; but that which 
quenched him lent her fire. The absolute necessity for self-command, 
the strength of her reason, and her love for her husband, combine at 
this critical moment to conquer all fear but the fear of detection, 
leaving her the full possession of her faculties. Recollect that the 
same woman who speaks with such horrible indifference of a little 
water clearing the blood stain from her hand, sees in imagination 
that hand for ever reeking, for ever polluted : and when reason is no 
longer awake and paramount over the violated feelings of nature 
and womanhood, we behold her making unconscious efforts to wash 
out that " damned spot," and sighing, heart-broken, over that little 
hand which all the perfumes of Arabia will never sweeten more. 



I hope you have given her a place among the women in whom 
the tender affections and moral sentiments predominate. 



You laugh; but, jesting apart, perhaps it would have been a more 
accurate classification than placing her among the historical characters. 



Apropos to the historical characters, I hope you have refuted 
that insolent assumption (shall I call it?), that Shakspeare tampered 
inexcusably with the truth of history. He is the truest of all 
historians. His anachronisms always remind me of those in the 
fine old Italian pictures; either they are insignificant, or, if properly 
considered, are really beauties; for instance, every one knows that 
Correggio's St. Jerome presenting his books to the Virgin involves 



INTRODUCTION. xxxix 

half-a-dozen anachronisms, — to say nothing of that heavenly figure 
of the Magdalen in the same picture kissing the feet of the 
infant Saviour. Some have ridiculed, some have excused this strange 
combination of inaccuracies ; but is it less one of the divinest 
pieces of sentiment and poetry that ever breathed and glowed 
from the canvass? You remember too the famous Nativity by 
some Neapolitan painter, who has placed Mount Vesuvius and the 
Bay of Naples in the back-ground 1 In these and a hundred 
other instances no one seems to feel that the apparent absurdity 
involves the highest truth, and that the sacred beings thus 
represented, if once allowed as objects of faith and worship, are 
eternal under every aspect, and independent of all time and all 
locality. So it is with Shakspeare and his anachronisms. The 
learned scorn of Johnson and some of his brotherhood of 
commentators, and the eloquent defence of Schlegel, seem in this case 
both superfluous. If he chose to make the Delphic oracle and Julio 
Romano contemporary — what does it signify 1 he committed no 
anachronisms of character. He has not metamorphosed Cleopatra 
into a turtle-dove, nor Katherine of Arragon into a sentimental 
heroine He is true to the spirit and even to the letter of history ; 
where he deviates from the latter, the reason may be found in some 
higher beauty and more universal truth. 



ALDA. 

I have proved this, I think, by placing parallel with the dramatic 
character all the historic testimony I could collect relative to 
Constance, Cleopatra, Katherine of Arragon, &c. 



Analyzing the character of Cleopatra must have been something 
like catching a meteor by the tail, and making it sit for its picture 



Something like it, in truth; but those of Miranda and Ophelia 
were more embarrassing, because they seemed to defy all analysis. It 



xl INTRODUCTION. 

was like intercepting the dew-drop or the snow-flake ere it fell to 
earth, and subjecting it to a chemical process. 



Some one said the other day that Shakspeare had never drawn a 
coquette. What is Cleopatra but the empress and type of all the 
coquettes that ever were — or are 1 She would put Lady 
herself to school. But now for the moral. 



The moral ! — of what. 

MEDON. 

Of your book. It has a moral, I suppose. 



It has indeed a very deep one, which those who seek will find. 
If now I have answered all your considerations and objections, and 
sufficiently explained my own views, may I proceed 1 

MEDON. 

If you please — I am now prepared to listen in earnest. 



CHARACTERS 



INTELLECT 



PORTIA. 



We hear it asserted, not seldom by way of compliment to us women, 
that intellect is of no sex. If this mean that the same faculties of mind 
are common to men and women, it is true; in any other signification 
it appears to me false, and the reverse of a compliment. The intellect 
of woman bears the same relation to that of man as her physical organ- 
ization ; — it is inferior in power, and different in kind. That certain 
women have surpassed certain men in bodily strength or intellectual 
energy, does not contradict the general principle founded in nature. The 
essential and invariable distinction appears to me this: in men the 
intellectual faculties exist more self-poised and self-directed — more 
independent of the rest of the character, than we ever find them in 
women, with whom talent, however predominant, is in a much greater 
degree modified by the sympathies and moral qualities. 

Tn thinking over all the distinguished women I can at this moment 
call to mind, I recollect but one, who, in the exercise of a rare talent, 
belied her sex, but the moral qualities had been first perverted.* It is 
from not knowing, or not allowing, this general principle, that men 
of genius have committed some signal mistakes. They have given us 
exquisite and just delineations of the more peculiar characteristics of 
women, as modesty, grace, tenderness ; and when they have attempted 
to portray them with the powers common to both sexes, as wit, energy, 
intellect, they have blundered in some respect ; they could form no con- 
ception of intellect which was not masculine, and therefore have either 

* Artemisia Gentileschi, an Italian artist of the seventeenth century, painted one or 
two pictures, considered admirable as works of art, of which the subjects are the most 
vicious and barbarous conceivable. I remember one of these in the gallery of Florence, 
which I looked at once, but once, and wished then, as I do now, for the piivilege of 
ourning it to ashes. 

1 



2 PORTIA. 

suppressed the feminine attributes altogether and drawn coarse carica- 
tures, or they have made them completely artificial.* Women dis- 
tinguished for wit may sometimes appear masculine and flippant, but 
the cause must be sought elsewhere than in nature, who disclaims all 
such. Hence the witty and intellectual ladies of our comedies and 
novels are all in the fashion of some particular time ; they are like 
some old portraits which can still amuse and please by the beauty of 
the workmanship, in spite of the graceless costume or grotesque accom- 
paniments, but from which we turn to worship with ever new delight the 
Floras and goddesses of Titian — the saints and the virgins of Raffaelle and 
Domenichino. So the Millamants and Belindas, the Lady Townleys and 
Lady Teazles are out of date, while Portia and Rosalind, in whom 
nature and the feminine character are paramount, remain bright and 
fresh to the fancy as when first created. 

Portia, Isabella, Beatrice, and Rosalind, may be classed together, as 
characters of intellect, because, when compared with others, they are at 
once distinguished by their mental superiority. In Portia it is intellect, 
kindled into romance by a poetical imagination ; in Isabel, it is intellect 
elevated by religious principle ; in Beatrice, intellect animated by spirit ; 
in Rosalind, intellect softened by sensibility. The wit w T hich is lavished 
on each is profound, or pointed, or sparkling, or playful — but always 
feminine ; like spirits distilled from flowers, it always reminds us of 
its origin ; it is a volatile essence, sweet as powerful ; and to pursue 
the comparison a step further,! the wit of Portia is like attar of roses, 
rich and concentrated ;] that of Rosalind, like cotton dipped in aromatic 
vinegar ; the wit of Beatrice is like sal volatile ; and that of Isabel, like 
the incense wafted to heaven. Of these four exquisite characters, con- 
sidered as dramatic and poetical conceptions, it is difficult to pronounce 
which is most perfect in its way, most admirably drawn, most highly 
finished. But if considered in another point of view, as women and 
individuals, as breathing realities, clothed in flesh and blood, I believe 
we must assign the first rank to Portia, as uniting in herself in a more 



* Lucy Ashton, in the Bride of Lammerraoor, may be placed next to Desdemona ; 
Diana Vernon is (comparatively) a failure, as every woman will allow ; while the mas- 
culine lady Geraldine, in Miss Edgeworth's tale of Ennui, and the intellectual Corinne, 
are consistent, essential women ; the distinction is more easily felt than analyzed. 



PORTIA. 3 

eminent degree than the others, all the noblest and most loveable qua- 
lities that ever met together in woman ; and presenting a complete 
personification of Petrarch's exquisite epitome of female perfection : 

II vago spirito ardento, 
E'n alto intelleto, un puro core. 

It is singular, that hitherto no critical justice has been done to the 
character of Por*a ; it is yet more wonderful, that one of the finest 
writers on the eternal subject of Shakspeare and his perfections, should 
accuse Portia of pedantry and affectation, and confess she is not a great 
favorite of his — a confession quite worthy of him, who avers his predi- 
lection for servant-maids, and his preference of the Fannies and the 
Pamelas over the Clementinas and Clarissas.* Schlegel, who has given 
several pages to a rapturous eulogy on the Merchant of Venice, simply 
designates Portia as a " rich, beautiful, clever heiress :" — whether the 
fault lie in the writer or translator, I do protest against the word clever.f 
Portia clever! what an epithet to apply to this heavenly compound of 
talent, feeling, wisdom, beauty, and gentleness! Now would it not be well, 
if this common and comprehensive word were more accurately defined, or 
at least more accurately used 1 It signifies properly, not so much the pos- 
session of high powers, as dexterity in the adaptation of certain faculties 
(not necessarily of a high order) to a certain end or aim — not always the 
worthiest. It implies something common-place, inasmuch as it speaks 
the presence of the active and perceptive, with a deficiency of the feel- 
ing and reflective powers : and applied to a woman, does it not almost 
invariably suggest the idea of something we should distrust or shrink 
from, if not allied to a higher nature 1 The profligate Frenchwomen, 
who ruled the councils of Europe in the middle of the last century, were 
clever women ; and that philosopheress Madame du Chatelet, who man- 
aged, at one and the same moment, the thread of an intrigue, her cards 
at piquet, and a calculation in algebra, was a very clever woman ! If 
Portia had been created as a mere instrument to bring about a dramatic 
catastrophe — if she had merely detected the flaw in Antonio's bond, and 

* Hazlitt's Essays, vol. ii., p. 1C7. 

t I am informed that the original German word is geistreiche, literally, rich in soul 
or spirit, a just and beautiful epithet. 2d Edit. 



4 PORTIA. 

used it as a means to baffle the Jew, she might have been pronounced a 
clever woman. But what Portia does, is forgotten in what she w. The 
rare and harmonious blending of energy, reflection and feeling, in her 
fine character, make the epithet clever sound like a discord as applied to 
her, and place her infinitely beyond the slight praise of Richardson and 
Schlegel, neither of "whom appears to have fully comprehended her. 

These and other critics have been apparently so dazzled and engrossed 
by the amazing character of Shylock, that Portia has received less than 
justice at their hands ; while the fact is, that Shylock is not a finer or more 
finished character in his way, than Portia is in hers. These two splen- 
did figures are w T orthy of each other ; worthy of being placed together 
within the same rich framework of enchanting poetry, and glorious and 
graceful forms. She hangs beside the terrible, inexorable Jew, the bril- 
liant lights of her character set off by the shadowy power of his, like a 
magnificent beauty-breathing Titian by the side of a gorgeous Rem- 
brandt. 

Portia is endued with her own share of those delightful qualities, 
which Shakspeare has lavished on many of his female characters ; but 
besides the dignity, the sweetness, and tenderness which should distinguish 
her sex generally, she is individualized by qualities peculiar to herself ; 
by her high mental powers, her enthusiasm of temperament, her decision 
of purpose, and her buoyancy of spirit. These are innate ; she has other 
distinguishing qualities more external, and which are the result of the cir- 
cumstances in which she is placed. Thus she is the heiress of a princely 
name and countless wealth ; a train of obedient pleasures have ever 
waited round her ; and from infancy she has breathed an atmosphere 
redolent of perfume and blandishment. Accordingly there is a command- 
ing grace, a high-bred, airy elegance, a spirit of magnificence in all that 
she does and says, as one to whom splendor had been familiar from her 
very birth. She treads as though her footsteps had been among marble 
palaces, beneath roofs of fretted gold, o'er cedar floors and pavements ^f 
jasper and porphyry — amid gardens full of statues, and flowers, and foun- 
tains, and haunting music. She is full of penetrative w T isdom, and 
genuine tenderness, and lively wit ; but as she has never known want, or 
grief, or fear, or disappointment, her wisdom is without a touch of the 
sombre or the sad ; her affections are all mixed up with faith, hope and 
joy ; and her wit has not a particle of malevolence or causticity. 



PORTIA . 5 

It is well known that the Merchant of Venice is founded on two differ- 
ent tales; and in weaving together his double plot in so masterly a man- 
ner, Shakspeare has rejected altogether the character of the astutious lady 
of Belmont with her magic potions, who figures in the Italian novel. 
With yet more refinement, he has thrown out all the licentious part of 
the story, which some of his contemporary dramatists would have seized 
on with avidity, and made the best or the worst of it possible; and he has 
substituted the trial of the caskets from another source.* We are not told 
expressly where Belmont is situated ; but as Bassanio takes ship to go 
thither from Venice, and as we find them afterwards ordering horses from 
Belmont to Padua, we will imagine Portia's hereditary palace as standing 
on some lovely promontory between Venice and Trieste, overlooking the 
blue Adriatic, with the Friuli mountains or the Euganean hills for its 
background, such as we often see in one of Claude's or Poussin's elysian 
landscapes. In a scene, in a home like this, Shakspeare, having first 
exorcised the original possessor, has placed his Portia : and so endowed 
her, that all the wild, strange, and moving circumstances of the story, 
become natural, probable, and necessary in connection with her. That 
such a woman should be chosen by the solving of an enigma, is not sur- 
prising : herself and all around her, the scene, the country, the age in 
which she is placed, breathe of poetry, romance and enchantment. 

From the four quarters of the earth they come 

To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint. 

The Hyrcanian desert, and the vasty wilda 

Of wild Arabia, are as thoroughfares now, 

For princes to come view fair Portia ; 

The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head 

Spits in the face of heaven is no bar 

To stop the foreign spirits ; but they come 

As o'er a brook to see fair Portia. 

The sudden plan which she forms for the release of her husband's 
friend, her disguise, and her deportment as the young and learned doctor, 
would appear forced and improbable in any other woman ; but in Portia 

* In the " Mercatante di Venezia " of Ser. Giovanni, we have the whole story of An- 
tonio and Bassanio, and part of the story, but not the character, of Portia._ The inci 
dent of the caskets is from the Gesta Romanorum. 



6 PORTIA . 

are the simple and natural result of her character.* The quickness with 
■which she perceives the legal advantage which may be taken of the cir- 
cumstances ; the spirit of adventure with which she engages in the mas- 
querading, and the decision, firmness, and intelligence with which she 
executes her generous purpose, are all in perfect keeping, and nothing 
appears forced — nothing as introduced merely for theatrical effect. 

But all the finest parts of Portia's character are brought to bear in the 
trial scene. There she shines forth all her divine self. Her intellectual 
powers, her elevated sense of religion, her high honorable principles, 
her best feelings as a woman, are all displayed. She maintains at first a 
calm self-command, as one sure of carrying her point in the end ; yet the 
painful heart-thrilling uncertainty in which she keeps the whole court, 
until suspense verges upon agony, is not contrived for effect merely ; it is 
necessary and inevitable. She has two objects in view ; to deliver her 
husband's friend, and to maintain her husband's honor by the discharge 
of his just debt, though paid out of her own wealth ten times over. It is 
evident that she w r ould rather owe the safety of Antonio to anything 
rather than the legal quibble with which her cousin Bellario has armed 
ner, and which she reserves as a last resource. Thus all the speeches 
addressed to Shylock in the first instance, are either direct or indirect 
experiments on his temper and feelings. She must be understood from 
the beginning to the end, as examining with intense anxiety the effect 
of her own words on his mind and countenance ; as watching for that 
relenting spirit, which she hopes to awaken either by reason or persua- 
sion. She begins by an appeal to his mercy, in that matchless piece of 
eloquence, which, with an irresistible and solemn pathos, falls upon the 
heart like " gentle dew from heaven : " — but in vain ; for that blessed 
dew drops not more fruitless and unfelt on the parched sand of the desert, 
than do these heavenly words upon the ear of Shylock. She next attacks 
his avarice : 

Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee ! 

* In that age, delicate points of law were not determined by the ordinary judges of the 
provinces, but by doctors of law, who were called from Bologna, Padua, and other 
places celebrated for their legal colleges. 



PORTIA. 7 

Then she appeals, in the same breath, both to his avarice and his pity : 

Be merciful ! 
Take thrice thy money. Bid me tear the bond. 

All that she says afterwards — her strong expressions, which are calculated 
to strike a shuddering horror through the nerves — the reflections she 
interposes — her delays and circumlocution to give time for any latent 
feeling of commiseration to display itself — all, all are premeditated and 
tend in the same manner to the object she has in view. Thus — 

You must prepare your bosom for his knife. 
Therefore lay bear your bosom ! 

These two speeches, though addressed apparently to Antonio, are 
spoken at Shylock, and are evidently intended to penetrate his bosom. 
In the same spirit she asks for the balance to weigh the pound of flesh : 
and entreats of Shylock to have a surgeon ready — 

Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge, 
To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death ! 

SHYLOCK. 

Is it so nominated in the bond ? 



It is not so expressed — but what of that ? 
'T were good you do so much, for charity. 

So unwilling is her sanguine and generous spirit to resign all hope, or 
to believe that humanity is absolutely extinct in the bosom of the Jew, 
that she calls on Antonio, as a last resource, to speak for himself. His 
gentle, yet manly resignation — the deep pathos of his farewell, and the 
affectionate allusion to herself in his last address to Bassanio — 

Commend me to your honorable wife ; 

Say how I lov'd you, speak me fair in death, &c. 



8 PORTIA. 

are well calculated to swell that emotion, which through the whole scene 
must have been laboring suppressed within her heart. 

At length the crisis arrives, for patience and womanhood can endure 
no longer ; and when Shylock, carrying his savage bent " to the last hour 
of act," springs on his victim — " A sentence ! come, prepare! " then the 
smothered scorn, indignation, and disgust, burst forth with an impetuo- 
sity which interferes with the judicial solemnity she had at first affected , 
-particularly in the speech — 

Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh. 

Shed thou no hlood ; nor cut thou less, nor more, 

But just the pound of flesh ; if thou tak'st more, 

Or less than a just pound, — be it but so much 

As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance, 

Or the division of the twentieth part 

Of one poor scruple ; nay, if the scale do turn 

But in the estimation of a hair, — 

Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate. 

But she afterwards recovers her propriety, and triumphs with a cooler 
scorn and a more self-possessed exultation. 

It is clear that, to feel the full force and dramatic beauty of this mar- 
vellous scene, we must go along with Portia as well as with Shylock ; we 
must understand her concealed purpose, keep in mind her noble motives, 
and pursue in our fancy the under current of feeling, working in her 
mind throughout. The terror and the power of Shylock's character, — his 
deadly and inexorable malice, — would be too oppressive ; the pain and 
pity too intolerable, and the horror of the possible issue too overwhelm- 
ing, but for the intellectual relief afforded by this double source of interesl 
and contemplation. 

I come now to that capacity for warm and generous affection, that ten- 
derness of heart, which render Portia not less loveable as a woman, than 
admirable for her mental endowments. The affections are to the intellect, 
what the forge is to the metal ; it is they which temper and shape it to all 
good purposes, and soften, strengthen, and purify it. What an exqui- 
site stroke of judgment in the poet, to make the mutual passion of Portia 
and Bassanio, though unacknowledged to each other, anterior to the 
opening of the play ! Bassanio's confession very properly comes first : — 



PORTIA . 



In Belmont is a lady richly left, 

And she is fair, and fairer than that word, 

Of wond'rous virtues ; sometimes from her eyes 

I did receive fair speechless messages ; 



and prepares us for Portia's half betrayed, unconscious election of this 
most graceful and chivalrous admirer — 



Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a 
soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat ? 

PORTIA. 

Yes, yes, it was Bassanio ; as I think, so he was called. 



True, madam ; he of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the 
best deserving a fair lady. 

PORTIA. 

I remember him well ; and I remember him worthy of thy praise. 

Our interest is thus awakened for the lovers from the very first ; and 
what shall be said of the casket scene with Bassanio, where every line 
which Portia speats is so worthy of herself, so full of sentiment and 
beauty, and poetry and passion ? Too naturally frank for disguise, too 
modest to confess her depth of love while the issue of the trial remains in 
suspense, the conflict between love and fear, and maidenly dignity, cause 
the most delicious confusion that ever tinged a woman's cheek, or dropped 
in broken utterance from her lips. 

I pray you, tarry, pause a day or two, 
Before you hazard ; for in choosing wrong, 
I lose your company ; therefore, forbear a while ; 
There's something tells me (but it is not love) 
I would not lose you ; and you know yourself, 



10 PORTIA. 

Hate counsels not in such a quality : 
But lest you should not understand me well 
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought), 
I would detain you here some month or two 
Before you venture for me. I could teach you 
How to choose right, — but then I am forsworn :— 
So will I never be : so you may miss me ; — 
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, 
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, 
They have o'erlooked me, and divided me ; 
One half of me is yours, the other half yours, — 
Mine own, I would say ; but if mine, then yours,- 
And so all yours ! 

The short dialogue between the lovers is exquisite. 



Let me choose ; 
For, as I am, I live upon the rack. 



Upon the rack, Bassanio ? Then confess 
What treason there is mingled with your love. 



EASSAHO. 



None, but that ugly treason of mistrust, 
Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love 
There may as well be amity and life 
'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love. 



Ay ! but I fear you speak upon the rack, 
Where men enforced do speak anything. 

BASSANIO. 

Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth. 

PORTIA. 

Well then, confess, and live. 



PORTIA. 



BASSANIO. 



Confess and love 
Had been the very sum of my confession ! 
O happy torment, when my torturer 
Doth teach me answers for deliverance ! 



A prominent feature in Portia's character is that confiding, buoyant 
spirit, which mingles with all her thoughts and affections. And here let 
me observe, that I never yet met in real life, nor ever read in tale or 
history, of any woman, distinguished for intellect of the highest order, 
who was not also remarkable for this trusting spirit, this hopefulness and 
cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the most serious habits of 
thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady Wortley Montagu was 
one instance ; Madame de Stael furnishes another much more memorable. 
In her Corinne, whom she drew from herself, this natural brightness of 
temper is a prominent part of the character. A disposition to doubt, to 
suspect, and to despond, in the young, argues, in general, some inherent 
weakness, moral or physical, or some miserable and radical error of 
education ; in the old, it is one of the first symptoms of age ; it speaks of 
the influence of sorrow and experience, and foreshows the decay of the 
stronger and more generous powers of the soul. Portia's strength of 
intellect takes a natural tinge from the flush and bloom of her young 
and prosperous existence, and from her fervent imagination. In the 
casket-scene, she fears indeed the issue of the trial, on which more than 
her life is hazarded ; but while she trembles, her hope is stronger than 
her fear. While Bassanio is contemplating the caskets, she suffers 
herself to dwell for one moment on the possibility of disappointment 
and misery. 

Let music sound while he doth make his choice ; 
Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, 
Fading in music : that the comparison 
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream 
And watery death-bed for him. 

Then immediately follows that revulsion of_ feeling, so beautifully 
characteristic of the hopeful, trusting, mounting spirit of this noble 
creature. 



12 PORTIA. 

But lie may win ! 

And what is music then ? — then music is 
Even as the flourish, when true subjects bow 
To a new-crowned monarch : such it is 
As are those dulcet sounds at break of day 
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear, 
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes 
With no less presence, but with much more bve 
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem 
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy 
To the sea monster. I stand here for sacrifice. 

Here, not only the feeling itself, born of the elastic and sanguine spirit 
•which had never heen touched by grief, but the images in which it comes 
arrayed to her fancy, — the bridegroom waked by music on his wedding 
mom, — the new-crowned monarch, — the comparison of Bassanio to the 
young Alcides, and of herself to the daughter of Laomedon, — are all 
precisely what would have suggested themselves to the fine poetical 
imagination of Portia in such a moment. 

Her passionate exclamations of delight, when Bassanio has fixed on 
the right casket, are as strong as though she had despaired before. Fear 
and doubt she could repel ; the native elasticity of her mind bore up 
against them ; yet she makes us feel, that, as the sudden joy overpowers 
her almost to fainting, the disappointment would as certainly have killed 
her. 

How all the other passions fleet to air, 

As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair, 

And shudd'ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy ? 

love ! be moderate, allay thy ecstasy ; 

In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess ; 

1 feel too much thy blessing ; make it less, 
For fear I surfeit ! 

Her subsequent surrender of herself in heart and soul, of hei- maiden 
freedom, and her vast possessions, can never be read without deep 
emotions ; for not only all the tenderness and delicacy of a devoted 
woman, are here blended with all the dignity which becomes the princely 
heiress of Belmont, but the serious, measured self-possession of her 



PORTIA . 13 

address to her lover, when all suspense is over, and all concealment 
superfluous, is most beautifully consistent with the character. It is, in 
truth, an awful moment, that in which a gifted woman first discovers, 
that besides talents and powers, she has also passions and affections ; 
when she first begins to suspect their vast importance in the sum of her 
existence ; when she first confesses that her happiness is no longer in her 
own keeping, but is surrendered for ever and for ever into the dominion 
of another! The possession of uncommon powers of mind are so far 
from affording relief or resource in the first intoxicating surprise — I had 
almost said terror — of such a revolution, that they render it more 
intense. The sources of thought multiply beyond calculation the sources 
of feeling ; and mingled, they rush together, a torrent deep as strong. 
Because Portia is endued with that enlarged comprehension which looks 
before and after, she does not feel the less, but the more : because from 
the height of her commanding intellect she can contemplate the force, 
the tendency, the consequences of her own sentiments — because she is 
fully sensible of her own situation, and the value of all she concedes — 
the concession is not made with less entireness and devotion of heart, 
less confidence in the truth and worth of her lover, than when Juliet, in 
a similar moment, but without any such intrusive reflections — any check 
but the instinctive delicacy of her sex, flings herself and her fortunes at 
the feet of her lover : 

And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, 

And follow thee, my lord, through all the world.* 

In Portia's confession, which is not breathed from a moonlit balcony, 
but spoken only in the presence of her attendants and vassals, there is 
nothing of the passionate self-abandonment of Juliet, nor of the artless 
simplicity of Miranda, but a consciousness and a tender seriousness, 
approaching to solemnity, which are not less touching. 

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand 
Such as I am : though for myself alone. 
I would not be ambitious in my wish, 

* Romeo anil Juliet, Act ii. Scene 'i 



14 PORTIA. 

To wish myself much better ; yet, for you, 

I would be trebled twenty times myself ; 

A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times 

More rich ; that only to stand high in your account, 

I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, 

Exceed account ; but the full sum of me 

Is sum of something ; which to term in gross, 

Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd, 

Happy in this, she is not yet so old 

But she may learn, and happier than this, 

She is not bred so dull but she can learn ; 

Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit 

Commits itself to yours to be directed, 

As from her lord, her governor, her king. 

Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours 

Is now converted. But now I was the lord 

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants, 

Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now, 

This house, these servants, and this same myself, 

Are yours, my lord. 

We must also remark that the sweetness, the solicitude, the subdued 
fondness which she afterwards displays, relative to the letter, are as true 
to the softness of her sex, as the generous self-denial with which she 
urges the departure of Bassanio (having first given him a husband's right 
over herself and all her countless wealth) is consistent with a reflecting 
mind, and a spirit at once tender, reasonable, and magnanimous. 

It is not only in the trial scene, that Portia's acuteness, eloquence, and 
lively intelligence are revealed to us ; they are displayed in the fust 
instance, and kept up consistently to the end. Her reflections, arising 
from the most usual aspects of nature, and from the commonest incidents 
of life, are in such a poetical spirit, and are at the same time so pointed, 
so profound, that they have passed into familiar and daily application, 
with all the force of proverbs. 

If to do, were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been 
churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. 

I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty 
to follow mine own teaching. 



PORTIA. 15 

The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, 
When neither is attended ; and I think 
The nightingale, if she should sing by day, 
When every goose is cackling, would be thought 
No better a musician than the wren. 
How many tilings by season, seasoned are 
To their right praise and true perfection ! 

How far that little candle throws his beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 
A substitute shines as brightly as a king, 
Until a king be by ; and then his state 
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook, 
Into the main of waters. 

Her reflections on the friendship between her husband and Antonio are 
as full of deep meaning as of tenderness ; and her portrait of a young 
coxcomb, in the same scene, is touched with a truth and spirit which 
show with what a keen observing eye she has looked upon men and 
things. 

I'll hold thee any wager, 

When we are both accoutred like young men, 

I'll prove the. prettier fellow of the two, 

And wear my dagger with a braver grace ; 

And speak between the change of man and boy 

With a reed voice ; and turn two mincing steps 

Into a manly stride ; and speak of frays 

Like a fine bragging youth ; and tell quaint lies — 

How honorable ladies sought my love, 

Which I denying, they fell sick and died ; 

I could not do with all : then I'll repent, 

And wish, for all that, that I had not killed them ; 

And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell 

That men shall swear I have discontinued school 

Above a twelvemonth ! 

And in the description of her various suitors, in the first scene with 
Nerissa, what infinite power, wit, and vivacity ! She half checks herself 
as she is about to give the reins to her sportive humor : " In truth, I 
know it is a sin to be a mocker." — But if it carries her away, it is so per- 



J6 PORTIA. 

fecfly good-natured, so temperately bright, so ladylike, it is ever without 
offence ; and so far, most unlike the satirical, poignant, unsparing wit 
of Beatrice, "misprising what she looks on." In fact, I can scarce 
conceive a greater contrast than between the vivacity of Portia and 
the vivacity of Beatrice. Portia, with all her airy brilliance, is supremely 
soft and dignified ; everything she says or does, displays her capability 
for profound thought and feeling, as well as her lively and romantic 
disposition ; and as I have seen in an Italian garden a fountain flinging 
round its wreaths of showery light, while the many-colored Iris hung 
brooding above it, in its calm and soul-felt glory ; so in Portia the wit is 
ever kept subordinate to the poetry, and we still feel the tender, the intel- 
lectual, and the imaginative part of the character, as superior to, and 
presiding over, its spirit and vivacity. 

In the last act, Shylock and his machinations being dismissed from our 
thoughts, and the rest of the dramatis persona assembled together at 
Belmont, all our interest and all our attention are riveted on Portia, and 
the conclusion leaves the most delighful impression on the fancy. The 
playful equivoque of the rings, the sportive trick she puts on her husband, 
and her thorough enjoyment of the jest, which she checks just as it is 
proceeding beyond the bounds of propriety, show how little she was 
displeased by the sacrifice of her gift, and are all consistent with her 
bright and buoyant spirit. In conclusion, when Portia invites her 
company to enter her palace to refresh themselves after their travels, 
and talk over " these events at full," the imagination, unwilling to 
lose sight of the brilliant group, follows them in gay procession from 
the lovely moonlight garden to marble halls and princely revels, to 
splendor and festive mirth, to love and happiness. 

Many women have possessed many of those qualities which render 
Portia so delightful. She is in herself a piece of reality, in whose pos- 
sible existence we have no doubt : and yet a human being, in whom the 
moral, intellectual and sentient faculties should be so exquisitely blended 
and proportioned to each other ; and these again, in harmony with all 
outward aspects and influences, probably never existed — certainly could 
not now exist. A woman constituted like Portia, and placed in this age, 
and in the actual state of society, would find society armed against her ; 
and instead of being like Portia, a gracious, happy, beloved, and loving 
creature, would be a victim, immolated in fire to that multitudinous 



PORTIA. 17 

Moloch termed Opinion. With her the world without would be at war 
with the world within ; in the perpetual strife, either her nature would 
" be subdued to the element it worked in," and bending to a necessity it 
could neither escape nor approve, lose at last something of its original 
brightness ; or otherwise — a perpetual spirit of resistance, cherished as a 
safeguard, might perhaps in the end destroy the equipoise; firmness 
would become pride and self-assurance ; and the soft, sweet, feminine 
texture of the mind, settle into rigidity. Is there then no sanctuary for 
such a mind 1 — Where shall it find a refuge from the world 1 — Where 
seek for strength against itself 1 Where, but in heaven ? 

Camiola, in Massinger's Maid of Honor, is said to emulate Port i a , 
and the real story of Camiola (for she is an historical personage) is very 
beautiful. She was a lady of Messina, who lived in the beginning of 
the fourteenth century ; and was the cotemporary of Queen Joanna, 
of Petrarch and Boccaccio. It fell out in those days, that Prince 
Orlando of Arragon, the younger brother of the King of Sicily, having 
taken the command of a naval armament against the Neapolitans, was 
defeated, wounded, taken prisoner, and confined by Robert of Naples 
(the father of Queen Joanna) in one of his strongest castles. As the 
prince had distinguished himself by his enmity to the Neapolitans, and 
by many exploits against them, his ransom was fixed at an exorbitant 
sum, and his captivity was unusually severe ; while the King of Sicily, 
who had some cause of displeasure against his brother, and imputed to 
him the defeat of his armament, refused either to negotiate for his 
release, or to pay the ransom demanded. 

Orlando, who was celebrated for his fine person and reckless valor, 
was apparently doomed to languish away the rest of his life in a 
dungeon, when Camiola Turinga, a rich Sicilian heiress, devoted the 
half of her fortune to release him. But as such an action might expose 
her to evil comments, she made it a condition, that Orlando should many 
her. The prince gladly accepted the terms, and sent her the contract 
of marriage, signed by his hand ; but no sooner was he at liberty, than 
he refused to fulfil it, and even denied all knowledge of his benefactress. 

Camiola appealed to the tribunal of state, produced the written 
contract, and described the obligations she had heaped on this ungrateful 
and ungenerous man; sentence was given against him, and he was 
adjudged to Camiola, not only as her rightful husband, but as a property 

3 



18 PORTIA. 

which, according to the laws of war in that age, she had purchased with 
her gold. The day of marriage was fixed ; Orlando presented himself 
with a splendid retinue ; Camiola also appeared, decorated as for her 
bridal ; but instead of bestowing her hand on the recreant, she 
reproached him in the presence of all with his breach of faith, declared 
her utter contempt for his baseness ; and then freely bestowing on him 
the sum paid for his ransom, as a gift worthy of his mean soul, she 
turned away, and dedicated herself and her heart to heaven. In this 
resolution she remained inflexible, though the king and all the court 
united in entreaties to soften her. She took the veil; and Orlando, 
henceforth regarded as one who had stained his knighthood, and violated 
his faith, passed the rest of bis life as a dishonored man, and died in 
obscurity. 

Camiola, in " The Maid of Honor," is, like Portia, a wealthy heiress, 
surrounded by suitors, and " queen o'er herself : " the character is 
constructed upon the same principles, as great intellectual power, 
magnanimity of temper, and feminine tenderness ; but not only do pain 
and disquiet, and the change induced by unkind and inauspicious 
influences, enter into this sweet picture to mar and cloud its happy 
beauty, — but the portrait itself may be pronounced out of drawing ; — 
for Massinger apparently had not sufficient delicacy of sentiment to 
work out bis own conception of the character with perfect consistency. 
In his adaptation of the story, be represents the mutual love of Orlando 
and Camiola as existing previous to the captivity of the former, and on 
his part declared with many vows of eternal faith, yet she requires a 
written contract of marriage before she liberates him. It will perhaps 
be said that she has penetrated his weakness, and anticipates his 
falsehood: miserable excuse! — how could a magnanimous woman love a 
man, whose falsehood she believes but possible ? — or loving him, how 
could she deign to secure herself by such means against the 
consequences 1 Shakspeare and Nature never committed such a solecism. 
Camiola doubts before she has been wronged ; the firmness and assurance 
in herself border on harshness. What in Portia is the gentle wisdom 
of a noble nature, appears, in Camiola, too much a spirit of calculation : 
it savors a little of the counting-house. As Portia is the heiress of 
Belmont, and Camiola a merchant's daughter, the distinction may be 



PORTIA. 19 

proper and characteristic, but it is not in favor of Camiola. The 
contrast may be thus illustrated : 



You have heard of Bertoldo's captivity, and the king's neglect, the greatness of his 
ransom ; fifty thousand crowns, Adorni ! Two parts of my estate ! Yet I so love the 
gentleman, for to you I will confess my weakness, that I purpose now, when he is 
forsaken by the king and his own hopes, to ransom him. 

Maid of Honor, Act 3. 

PORTIA. 

What sum owes he the Jew ? 

BASSANIO. 

For me — three thousand ducats. 



What ! no more ! 

Pay him six thousand and deface the bond, 

Double six thousand, and then treble that, 

Before a friend of this description 

Shall lose a hair thro' my Bassanio's fault. 

You shall have gold 

To pay the petty debt twenty times o'er. 

Merchant of Venice. 

Camiola, who is a Sicilian, might as well have been born at Amsterdam : 
Portia cculd have only existed in Italy. Portia is profound as she is 
brilliant ; Camiola is sensible and sententious ; she asserts her dignity 
very successfully; but we cannot for a moment imagine Portia as 
reduced to the necessity of asserting hers. The idiot Sylli, in "The 
Maid of Honor," who follows Camiola like one of the deformed dwarfs 
of old time, is an intolerable violation of taste and propriety, and it 
sensibly lowers our impression of the principal character. Shakspeare 
would never have placed Sir Andrew Aguecheek in constant and 
immediate approximation with such a woman as Portia. 

Lastly, the charm of the poetical coloring is wholly wanting in 
Camiola, so that when she is placed in contrast with the glowing 



20 PORTIA. 

eloquence, the luxuriant grace, the buoyant spirit of Portia, the effect 
is somewhat that of coldness and formality. Notwithstanding the 
dignity and the beauty of Massinger's delineation, and the noble 
self-devotion of Camiola, which I acknowledge and admire, the two 
characters will admit of no comparison as sources of contemplation and 
pleasure. 



It is observable that something of the intellectual brilliance of Portia 
is reflected on the other female characters of the " Merchant of Venice," 
so as to preserve in the midst of contrast a certain harmony and 
keeping. Thus Jessica, though properly kept subordinate, is certainly 

A most beautiful Pagan — a most sweet Jew. 

She cannot be called a sketch — or if a sketch, she is like one of those 
dashed off in glowing colors from the rainbow palette of a Rubens ; 
she has a rich tinge of orientalism shed over her, worthy of her eastern 
origin. In any other play, and in any other companionship than that 
of the matchless Portia, Jessica would make a very beautiful heroine 
of herself. Nothing can be more poetically, more classically fanciful 
and elegant, than the scenes between her and Lorenzo ; — the celebrated 
moonlight dialogue, for instance, which we all have by heart. Every 
sentiment she utters interests us for her : — more particularly her bashful 
self-reproach, when flying in the disguise of a page ; — 

I am glad 'tis night, you do not look upon me, 
For I am much asham'd of my exchange ; 
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see 
The pretty follies that themselves commit ; 
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush 
To see me thus transformed to a boy. 

And the enthusiastic and generous testimony to the superior graces 
and accomplishments of Portia comes with a peculiar grace from her 
lips. 

Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match. 
And on the wager lay two earthly women, 



PORTIA. 21 

And Portia one, there must be something else 
Pawned with the other ; for the poor rude world 
Hath not her fellow. 



We should not, however, easily pardon her for cheating her father with 
so much indifference, hut for the perception that Shylock values his 
daughter far heneath his wealth. 

I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear ! — would she 
were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin ! 

Nerissa is a good specimen of a common genus of characters ; she is 
a clever confidential waiting-woman, who has caught a little of her 
lady's elegance and romance ; she affects to he lively and sententious, 
falls in love, and makes her favor conditional on the fortune of the 
caskets, and in short mimics her mistress with good emphasis and 
discretion. Nerissa and the gay talkative Gratiano are as well matched 
as the incomparable Portia and her magnificent and captivating lover. 



ISABELLA. 



The character of Isabella, considered as a poetical delineation, is 
less mixed than that of Portia ; and the dissimilarity between the 
two appears, at first view, so complete, that we can scarce believe 
that the same elements enter into the composition of each. Yet so 
it is ; they are portrayed as equally wise, gracious, virtuous, fair, and 
young ; we perceive in both the same exalted principle and firmness 
of character ; the same depth of reflection and persuasive eloquence ; 
the same self-denying generosity and capability of strong affections; 
and we must wonder at that marvellous power by which qualities and 
endowments, essentially and closely allied, are so combined and 
modified as to produce a result altogether different. " O Nature ! 
Shakspeare ! which of ye drew from the other 1" 

Isabella is distinguished from Portia, and strongly individualized by 
a certain moral grandeur, a saintly grace, something of vestal dignity 
and purity, which render her less attractive and more imposing : she 
is " severe in youthful beauty," and inspires a reverence which would 
have placed her beyond the daring of one unholy wish or thought, 
except in such a man as Angelo — 

O cunning enemy ! that to catch a saint, 
With saints dost bait thy hook. 

This impression of her character is conveyed from the very first, 
when Lucio, the libertine jester, whose coarse audacious wit checks at 
ever] feather, thus expresses his respect for her, — 



24 ISABELLA. 

I would not, though 'tis my familiar sin 
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest, 
Tongue far from heart — play with all virgins so. 
I hold you as a thing enskyed and sainted ; 
By your renouncement an immortal spirit, 
And to be talked with in sincerity, 
As with a saint 

A strong distinction between Isabella and Portia is produced by the 
i'ircmnstances in which they are respectively placed. Portia is a 
high-born heiress, " Lord of a fair mansion, master of her servants, 
queen o'er herself ;" easy and decided as one born to command, and 
used to it. Isabella has also the innate dignity which renders her 
" queen o'er herself," but she has lived far from the world and its 
pomps and pleasures ; she is one of a consecrated sisterhood — a 
novice of St. Clare ; the power to command obedience and to confer 
happiness are to her unknown. Portia is a splendid creature, radiant 
with confidence, hope, and joy. She is like the orange-tree, hung 
at once with golden fruit and luxuriant flowers, which has expanded 
into bloom and fragrance beneath favoring skies, and has been nursed 
into beauty by the sunshine and the dews of heaven. Isabella is 
like a stately and graceful cedar, towering on some Alpine cliff, 
unbowed and unscathed amid the storm. She gives us the impression 
of one who has passed under the ennobling discipline of suffering 
and self-denial ; a melancholy charm tempers the natural vigor of her 
mind : her spirit seems to stand upon an eminence, and look down 
upon the world as if already enskyed and sainted ; and yet when 
brought in contact with that world which she inwardly despises, she 
shrinks back with all the timidity natural to her cloistral education. 

This union of natural grace and grandeur with the habits and 
sentiments of a recluse, — of austerity of life with gentleness of 
manner, — of inflexible moral principle with humility and even 
bashfulness of deportment, is delineated with the most beautiful ant! 
wonderful consistency. Thus when her brother sends to her, to 
entreat her mediation, her first feeling is fear, and a distrust in her 
own powers : 

. . . Alas ! what poor ability's in me 
To do him good ? 



ISABELLA. 25 

LUCIO. 

Essay the power you have. 

ISABELLA. 

My power, alas ! I doubt. 

In the first scene with Angelo she seems divided between her love 
for her brother and the sense of his fault ; between her self-respect 
and her maidenly bashfulness. She begins with a kind of hesitation 
" at war 'twixt will and will not :" and when Angelo quotes the law, and 
insists on the justice of his sentence, and the responsibility of his 
station, her native sense of moral rectitude and severe principles 
takes the lead, and she shrinks back : — 

. . O just, but severe law ! 

I had a brother then — Heaven keep your honor ! 

(Retiring.) 

Excited and encouraged by Lucio, and supported by her own natural 
spirit, she returns to the charge, — she gains energy and self-possession 
as she proceeds, grows more earnest and passionate from the difficulty 
she encounters, and displays that eloquence and power of reasoning 
for which we had been already prepared by Claudio's first allusion 
to her : — 

In her youth 

There is a prone and speechless dialect, 
Such as moves men ; besides, she hath prosperous art, 
When she will play with reason and discourse, 
And well she can persuade. 

It is a curious coincidence, that Isabella, exhorting Angelo to mercy, 

avails herself of precisely the same arguments, and insists on the 

self-same topics which Portia addresses to Shylock in her celebrated 

speech ; but how beautifully and how truly is the distinction marked ! 

how like, and yet how unlike ! Portia's eulogy on mercy is a piece 

of heavenly rhetoric ; it falls on the ear with a solemn measured 

harmony ; it is the voice of a descended angel addressing an inferior 
4 



26 ISABELLA. 

nature : if not premeditated, it is at least part of a preconcerted 
scheme ; while Isabella's pleadings are poured from the abundance of 
her heart in broken sentences, and with the artless vehemence of one 
who feels that life and death hang upon her appeal. This will be 
best understood by placing the corresponding passages in immediate 
comparison with each other. 



The quality of mercy is not strain'd, 

It droppeth as the gentle dew from heaven 

Upon the place beneath : it is twice bless'd : 

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes : 

! Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 

The throned monarch better than his crown ; 

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 

The attribute to awe and majesty, 

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings : 

But mercy is above this sceptred sway — 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings. 

ISABELLA. 

Well, believe this, 
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, 
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, 
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, 
Become them with one half so good a grace 
As mercy does. 



Consider this — 
That in the course of justice, none of us 
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy ; 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy. 



Alas ! alas ! 

Why all the souls that are, were forfeit once ; 
And He, that might the 'vantage best have took, 
Found out the remedy. How would you be, 



ISABELLA. 27 

If He, which is the top of judgment, should 
But judge you as you are ? O think on that, 
And mercy then will breathe within your lips 
Like man new made ! 

The beautiful things which Isabella is made to utter, have, like 
the sayings of Portia, become proverbial; but in spirit and character 
they are as distinct as are the two women. In all that Portia says, 
we confess the power of a rich poetical imagination, blended with a 
quick practical spirit of observation, familiar with the surfaces of 
things ; while there is a profound yet simple morality, a depth of 
religious feeling, a touch of melancholy, in Isabella's sentiments, and 
something earnest and authoritative in the manner and expression, as 
though they had grown up in her mind from long and deep meditation 
in the silence and solitude of her convent cell: 

O it is excellent 
To have a giant's strength ; but it is tyrannous 
To use it like a giant. 

Could great men thunder 
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet : 
For every pelting, petty officer 

Would use his heaven for thunder ; nothing but thunder. 
Merciful Heaven ! 

Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt 
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak 
Than the soft myrtle. O but man, proud man ! 
Drest in a little brief authority, 
Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 
His glassy essence, like an angry ape, 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, 
As make the angels weep. 

Great men may jest with saints, 'tis wit in them ; 
But in the less, foul profanation. 
That in the captain 's but a choleric word 
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. 

Authority, although it err like others, 
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself 



28 ISABELLA. 

That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom ; 

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know 

That's like my brother's fault : if it confess 

A natural guiltiness such as his is, 

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue 

Against my brother's life. 

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, 
But graciously to know I am no better. 

The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 
And the poor beetle that we tread upon, 
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
As when a giant dies ! 

'Tis not impossible 
But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, 
May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute 
As Angelo ; even so may Angelo, 
In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, 
Be an arch villain. 

Her fine powers of reasoning, and that natural uprightness and 
purity, which no sophistry can warp, and no allurement betray, are 
farther displayed in the second scene with Angelo. 

ANGELO. 

What would you do ? 



As much for my poor brother as myself; 

That is, were I under the terms of death, 

The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, 

And strip myself to death as to a bed 

That, longing, I have been sick for, ere I'd yield 

My body up to shame. 

ANGELO. 

Then must your brother die. 



ISABELLA . 

ISABELLA. 

And 't were the cheaper way : 
Better it were a brother died at once, 
Than that a sister, by redeeming him. 
Should die for ever. 



Were not you then as cruel as the sentence, 
That you have slander'd so ! 



Ignominy in ransom, and free pardon, 
Are of two houses : lawful mercy is 
Nothing akin to foul redemption. 



You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant ; 
And rather proved the sliding of your brother 
A merriment than a vice. 



pardon me, my lord ; it oft falls out, 

To have what we'd have, we speak not what we mean : 

1 something do excuse the thing I hate, 
For his advantage that I dearly love. 

Towards the conclusion of the play we have another instance of 
that rigid sense of justice, which is a prominent part of Isabella's 
character, and almost silences her earnest intercession for her brother, 
when his fault is placed between her plea and her conscience. The 
Duke condemns the villain Angelo to death, and his wife Mariana 
entreats Isabella to plead for her. 

Sweet Isabel, take my part, 
Lend me your knees, and all my life to come 
I '11 lend you all my life to do you service. 

[sabella remains silent, and Mariana reiterates her prayer. 



:*u ISABELLA 



Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me, 

Hold up your hands, say nothing, I'll speak all ! 

O Isabel ! will you not lend a knee ? 

Isabella, thus urged, breaks silence and appeals to the Duke, not 

with supplication, or persuasion, but with grave argument, and a 

kind of dignified humility and conscious power, which are finely 
characteristic of the individual woman. 

Most bounteous Sir, 
Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd, 
As if my brother liv'd ; I partly think 
A due sincerity governed his deeds 
Till he did look on me ; since it is so 
Let him not die. My brother had but justice, 
In that he did the thing for which he died. 
For Angelo, 

His art did not o'ertako his bad intent, 
That perish'd by the way : thoughts are no subjects, 
Intents, but merely thoughts. 

In this instance, as in the one before mentioned, Isabella's 
conscientiousness is overcome by the only sentiment which ought to 
temper justice into mercy, the power of affection and sympathy. 

Isabella's confession of the general frailty of her sex, has a 
peculiar softness, beauty, and propriety. She admits the imputation 
with all the sympathy of woman for woman ; yet with all the 
dignity of one who felt her own superiority to the weakness she 
acknowledges. 

ANGELO. 

Nay, women are frail too. 



Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves ; 
Which are as easy broke as they make forms. 
Women ! help heaven ! men their creation mar 
In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail ; 
For we are soft as our complexions are, 
And credulous to false prints. 



ISABELLA. 31 

Nor should we fail to remark the deeper interest which is thrown 
round Isabella, by one part of her character, which is betrayed rather 
than exhibited in the progress of the action ; and for which we are 
not at first prepared, though it is so perfectly natural. It is the strong 
under-current of passion and enthusiasm flowing beneath this calm 
and saintly self-possession ; it is the capacity for high feeling, and 
generous and strong indignation, veiled beneath the sweet austere 
composure of the religious recluse, which, by the very force of contrast, 
powerfully impress the imagination. As we see in real life that 
where, from some external or habitual cause, a strong control is 
exercised over naturally quick feelings and an impetuous temper, they 
display themselves with a proportionate vehemence when that 
restraint is removed ; so the very violence with which her passions 
burst forth, when opposed or under the influence of strong excitement, 
is admirably characteristic. 

Thus in her exclamation, when she first allows herself to perceive 
Angelo's vile design — 



Ha ! little honor to be much believed, 

And most pernicious purpose ! — seeming ! — seeming ! 

I will proclaim thee, Angelo : look for it ! 

Sign me a present pardon for my brother, 

Or with an outstretched throat I'll tell the world 

Aloud, what man thou art ! 

And again, where she finds that the " outward sainted deputy " has 
deceived her — 

O I will to him, and pluck out his eyes ! 
Unhappy Claudio ! wretched Isabel ! 
Injurious world ! most damned Angelo ! 

She places at first a strong and high-souled confidence in her 
brother's fortitude and magnanimity, judging him by her own lofty 
spirit : 

I'll to my brother ; 
Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood, 
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honor, 



82 ISABELLA. 

That had he twenty heads to tender down, 
On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up 
Before his sister should her body stoop 
To such abhorr*d pollution. 

But when her trust in his honor is deceived by his momentary 
weakness, her scorn has a bitterness, and her indignation a force of 
expression almost fearful ; and both are carried to an extreme, which 
is perfectly in character : 

O faithless coward ! O dishonest wretch ! 

Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice ? 

Is 't not a kind of incest to take life 

From thine own sister's shame ? What should I think ? 

Heaven shield, my mother play'd my father fair ! 

For such a warped slip of wilderness 

Ne'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance : 

Die ! perish ! might but my bending down 

Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed. 

I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, 

No word to save thee. 

The whole of this scene with Claudio is inexpressibly grand in the 
poetry and the sentiment ; and the entire play abounds in those 
passages and phrases which must have become trite from familiar and 
constant use and abuse, if their wisdom and unequalled beauty did not 
invest them with an immortal freshness and vigor, and a perpetual 
charm. 

The story of Measure for Measure is a tradition of great antiquity, 
of which there are several versions, narrative and dramatic. A 
contemptible tragedy, the Promos and Cassandra of George Whetstone, 
is supposed, from various coincidences, to have furnished Shakspeare 
with the ground-work of the play ; but the character of Isabella is, 
in conception and execution, all his own. The commentators have 
collected with infinite industry all the sources of the plot ; but to the 
grand creation of Isabella, they award either silence or worse than 
silence. Johnson and the rest of the black-letter crew pass her over 
without a word. One critic, a lady-critic too, whose name I will be 
so merciful as to suppress, treats Isabella as a coarse vixen. Hazlitt 



ISABELLA. 33 

with that strange perversion of sentiment and want of taste which 
sometimes mingle with his piercing and powerful intellect, dismisses 
Isabella with a slight remark, that " we are not greatly enamored 
of her rigid chastity, nor can we feel much confidence in the virtue 
that is sublimely good at another's expense." What shall we answer 
to such a criticism 1 Upon what ground can we read the play from 
beginning to end, and doubt the angel-purity of Isabella, or contemplate 
her possible lapse from virtue 1 Such gratuitous mistrust is here a 
sin against the light of heaven. 

Having waste ground enough, 
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary, 
And pitch our evils there ? 

Professor Richardson is more just, and truly sums up her character 
as " amiable, pious, sensible, resolute, determined, and eloquent :" but 
Lis remarks are rather superficial. 

SchlegePs observations are also brief and general, and in no way 
distinguish Isabella from many other characters ; neither did his 
plan allow him to be more minute. Of the play altogether, he 
observes very beautifully, " that the title Measure for Measure is in 
reality a misnomer, the sense of the whole being properly the triumph 
of mercy over strict justice :" but it is also true, that there is " an 
original sin in the nature of the subject, which prevents us from 
taking a cordial interest in it."* Of all the characters, Isabella 
alone has our sympathy. But though she triumphs in the conclusion, 
her triumph is not produced in a pleasing manner. There are too 
many disguises and tricks, too many " by-paths and indirect crooked 
ways," to conduct us to the natural and foreseen catastrophe, which 
the Duke's presence throughout renders inevitable. This Duke seems 
to have a predilection for bringing about justice by a most unjustifiable 
succession of falsehoods and counterplots. He really deserves Lucio's 
satirical designation, who somewhere styles him " The Fantastical 
Duke of Dark Corners." But Isabella is ever consistent in her pure 
and upright simplicity, and in the midst of this simulation, expresses 
a characteristic disapprobation of the part she is made to play, 

* Characters of Shakspeare's Plays. 



34 ISABELLA. 

To speak so indirectly I am loth : 
I would say the truth.* 

She yields to the supposed Friar with a kind of forced docility, 
because her situation as a religious novice, and his station, habit, 
and authority, as her spiritual director, demand this sacrifice. In the 
end we are made to feel that her transition from the convent to 
the throne has but placed this noble creature in her natural sphere : 
for though Isabella, as Duchess of Vienna, could not more command 
our highest reverence than Isabel the novice of Saint Clare, yet a 
wider range of usefulness and benevolence, of trial and action, was 
better suited to the large capacity, the ardent affections, the energetic 
intellect, and firm principle of such a woman as Isabella, than the 
walls of a cloister. The philosophical Duke observes in the very first 
scene — 

Spirits are not finely touched, 
But to fine issues : nor nature never lends 
The smallest scruple of her excellence, 
But like a thrifty goddess she determines, 
Herself the glory of a creditor, 
Both thanks and use.f 

This profound and beautiful sentiment is illustrated in 'he character 
and destiny of Isabella. She says, of herself, that " she has spirit to 
act whatever her heart approves ;" and what her heart approves we 
know. 

In the convent (which may stand here poetically for any narrow 
and obscure situation in which such a woman might b^ placed), 
Isabella would not have been unhappy, but happiness would have 
been the result of an effort, or of the concentration of her great 
mental powers to some particular purpose; as St. Theresa's intellect, 
enthusiasm, tenderness, restless activity, and burning eloquence, 
governed by one overpowering sentiment of devotion, rendered her 
the most extraordinary of saints. Isabella, like St. Theresa, complains 
that the rules of her order are not sufficiently severe, and from the 

" Act iv. Scene 5. t Use, i. e. usury, interest. 



ISABELLA. 35 

same cause, — that from the consciousness of strong intellectual and 
imaginative power, and of overflowing sensibility, she desires a more 
''strict restraint," or, from the continual, involuntary struggle against 
(he trammels imposed, feels its necessity. 

ISABELLA. 

And have you nuns no further privileges ? 

FEANCISCA. 

Are not these large enough ? 

ISABELLA. 

Yes truly ; I speak, not as desiring more, 
But rather wishing a more strict restraint 
Upon the sisterhood. 

Such women as Desdemona and Ophelia would have passed their 
h 'es in the seclusion of a nunnery, without wishing, like Isabella, for 
stricter bonds, or planning, like St. Theresa, the reformation of their 
order, simply, because any restraint would have been efficient, as far 
as they were concerned. Isabella, " dedicate to nothing temporal," 
might have found resignation through self-government, or have 
become a religious enthusiast : while " place and greatness" would 
have appeared to her strong and upright mind, only a more extended 
field of action, a trust and a trial. The mere trappings of power 
and state, the gemmed coronal, the ermined robe, she would have 
regarded as the outward emblems of her earthly profession ; and 
would have worn them with as much simplicity as her novice's hood 
and scapular ; still, under whatever guise she might tread this thorny 
world — the same " angel of light." 



BEATRICE. 



Shakspeare has exhibited in Beatrice a spirited and faithful portrait of 
the fine lady of his own time. The deportment, language, manners, and 
allusions, are those of a particular class in a particular age ; but the 
individual and dramatic character which forms the groundwork, is 
strongly discriminated ; and being taken from general nature, belongs to 
every age. In Beatrice, high intellect and high animal spirits meet, 
and excite each other like fire and air. In her wit (which is brilliant 
without being imaginative) there is a touch of insolence, not unfrequent 
in women when the wit predominates over reflection and imagination. 
In her temper, too, there is a slight infusion of the termagant ; and her 
satirical humor plays with such an unrespective levity over all subjects 
alike, that it required a profound knowledge of women to bring such a 
character within the pale of our sympathy. But Beatrice, though 
wilful, is not wayward ; she is volatile, not unfeeling. She has not only 
an exuberance of wit and gaiety, but of heart, and soul, and energy of 
spirit ; and is no more like the fine ladies of modern comedy, — whose 
wit consists in a temporary allusion, or a play upon words, and whose 
petulance is displayed in a toss of the head, a flirt of the fan, or a 
flourish of the pocket handkerchief, — than one of our modern dandies is 
like Sir Philip Sydney. 

In Beatrice, Shakspeare has contrived that the poetry of the character 
shall not only soften, but heighten its comic effect. We are not only 
inclined to forgive Beatrice all her scornful airs, all her biting jests, all 
her assumption of superiority ; but they amuse and delight us the more, 
when we find her, with all the headlong simplicity of a child, falling at 
once into the snare laid for her affections ; when we see her, who 
thought a man of God's making not good enough for her, whe disdained 
to be o'ermastered by " a piece of valiant dust," stooping like the rest 



38 BEATRICE. 

of her sex, vailing her proud spirit, and taming her wild heart to the 
loving hand of him whom she had scorned, flouted, and misused, " past 
the endurance of a block." And we are yet more completely won by 
her generous enthusiastic attachment to her cousin. When the father 
of Hero believes the tale of her guilt ; when Claudio, her lover, without 
remorse or a lingering doubt, consigns her to shame ; when the Friar 
remains silent, and the generous Benedick himself knows not what to 
say, Beatrice, confident in her affections, and guided only by the impulses 
of her own feminine heart, sees through the inconsistency, the 
impossibility of the charge, and exclaims, without a moment's hesitation, 

O, on my soul, ray cousin is belied ! 

Schlegel, in his remarks on the play of " Much Ado about nothing," 
has given us an amusing instance of that sense of reality with which we 
are impressed by Shakspeare's characters. He says of Benedick and 
Beatrice, as if he had known them personally, that the exclusive 
direction of their pointed raillery against each other " is a proof of a 
growing inclination." This is not likely ; and the same inference 
would lead us to suppose that this mutual inclination had commenced 
before the opening of the play. The very first words uttered by Beatrice 
are an inquiry after Benedick, though expressed with her usual arch 
impertinence : — 

I pray you, is Signior Montanto returned from the wars, or no ? 

I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars ? But how many 
hath he killed ? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing. 

And in the unprovoked hostility with which she falls upon him in his 
absence, in the pertinacity and bitterness of her satire, there is certainly 
great argument that he occupies much more of her thoughts than she 
would have been willing to confess, even to herself. In the same 
manner, Benedick betrays a lurking partiality for his fascinating enemy ; 
he shows that he has looked upon her with no careless eye, when he 
says, 

There's her cousin (meaning Beatrice), an' she were not possessed with a fury, 
excels her as much in beauty as the first of May does the last of Decembre 



BEATRICE. 39 

Infinite skill, as well as humor, is shown in making this pair of airy 
Deings the exact counterpart of each other; hut of the two portraits, 
that of Benedick is by far the most pleasing, because the independence 
and gay indifference of temper, the laughing defiance of love and 
marriage, the satirical freedom of expression, common to both, are more 
becoming to the masculine than to the feminine character. Any woman 
might love such a cavalier as Benedick, and be proud of his affection ; 
his valor, his wit, and his gaiety sit so gracefully upon him ! and his 
light scoffs against the power of love are but just sufficient to render 
more piquant the conquest of this " heretic in despite of beauty." But 
a man might well be pardoned who should shrink from encountering 
such a spirit as that of Beatrice, unless, indeed, he had " served an 
apprenticeship to the taming school." The wit of Beatrice is less good- 
humored than that of Benedick ; or, from the difference of sex, appears 
so. It is observable, that the power is throughout on her side, and the 
sympathy and interest on his : which, by reversing the usual order of 
things, seems to excite us against the grain, if I may use such an 
expression. In all their encounters she constantly gets the better of 
him, and the gentleman's wits go off halting, if he is not himself fairly 
hors de combat. Beatrice, woman like, generally has the first word, 
and will have the last. Thus, when they first meet, she begins by 
provoking the merry warfare : — 

I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick ; nobody marks you. 

BENEDICK. 

What, my dear Lady Disdain ! are you yet living ? 

EEATEICE. 

Is it possible Disdain should die, while she hath such meet food to feed it as 
Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her 
presence. 

It is clear that she cannot for a moment endure his neglect, and he 
can as little tolerate her scorn. Nothing that Benedick addresses to 
Beatrice personally can equal the malicious force of some of her attacks 
upon him : he is either restrained by a feeling of natural gallantry. 



40 BEATRICE. 

little as she deserves the consideration due to her sex (for a female 
satirist ever places herself beyond the pale of such forbearance), or he is 
subdued by her superior volubility. He revenges himself, however, in 
her absence : he abuses her with such a variety of comic invective, and 
pours forth his pent-up wrath with such a ludicrous extravagance 
and exaggeration, that he betrays at once how deep is his mortification, 
and how unreal his enmity. 

In the midst of all this tilting and sparring of their nimble and fiery 
wits, we find them infinitely anxious for the good opinion of each other, 
and secretly impatient of each other's scorn : but Beatrice is the most 
truly indifferent of the two ; the most assured of herself. The comic 
effect produced by their mutual attachment, which, however natural and 
expected, comes upon us with all the force of a surprise, cannot he 
surpassed : and how exquisitely characteristic the mutual avowal ' 

BENEDICK. 

By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me. 

BEATRICE. 

Do not swear by it, and eat it. 

BENEDICK. 

I will swear by it, that you love me ; and I will make him eat it, that says, I lovo 
not you. 

BEATRICE. 

Will you not eat your word ? 

BENEDICK. 

With no sauce that can be devised to it : I protest, I love thee. 

BEATRICE. 

Why, then, God forgive me ! 

BENEDICK. 

What offence, sweet Beatrice 1 

BEATRICE. 

You stayed me in a happy hour. 1 was about to protest, I loved you. 



BEATRICE. 



And do it witli all thy heart. 

BEATRICE. 

I love you with so much of my heart, that there is none left to protest. 

But here again the dominion rests with Beatrice, and she appears in a 
less amiable light than her lover. Benedick surrenders his whole heart 
to her and to his new passion. The revulsion of feeling even causes 
it to overflow in an excess of fondness ; but with Beatrice temper has 
still the mastery. The affection of Benedick induces him to challenge 
his intimate friend for her sake, but the affection of Beatrice does not 
prevent her from risking the life of her lover. 

The character of Hero is well contrasted with that of Beatrice, and 
their mutual attachment is very beautiful and natural. When they are 
both on the scene together, Hero has but little to say for herself : 
Beatrice asserts the rule of a master spirit, eclipses her by her mental 
superiority, abashes her by her raillery, dictates to her, answers for 
her, and would fain inspire her gentle-hearted cousin with some of her 
own assurance. 

Yes, faith ; it is my cousin's duty to make a curtsey, and say, " Father, as it please 
you;" but yet, for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another 
curtsey, and, " Father, as it please me." 

But Shakspeare knew well how to make one character subordinate 
to another, without sacrificing the slightest portion of its effect ; and 
Hero, added to her grace and softness, and all the interest which 
attaches to her as the sentimental heroine of the play, possesses an 
intellectual beauty of her own. When she has Beatrice at an advantage, 
she repays her with interest, in the severe, but most animated and 
elegant picture she draws of her cousin's imperious character and 
unbridled levity of tongue. The portrait is a little overcharged, 
because administered as a corrective, and intended to be overheard. 

But nature never fram'd a woman's heart 

Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice : 
6 



BEATRICE. 

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, 
Misprising what they look on ; and her wit 
Values itself so highly, that to her 
All matter else seems weak ; she cannot love, 
Nor take no shape nor project of affection, 
She is so self-endeared. 

URSULA. 

Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable. 



No : not to be so odd, and from all fashions. 
As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable : 
But who dare tell her so 1 If I should speak, 
She'd mock me into air : O she would laugh me 
Out of myself, press me to death with wit. 
Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, 
Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly : 
It were a better death than die with mocks, 
Which is as bad as die with tickling. 

Beatrice never appears to greater advantage than in her soliloquy 
after leaving her concealment " in the pleached bower where honey- 
suckles, ripened by the sun, forbid the sun to enter;" she exclaims, 
after listening to this tirade against herself, — 

What fire is in mine ears ? Can this be true ? 
Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much ? 

The sense of wounded vanity is lost in bitter feelings, and she is 
infinitely more struck by what is said in praise of Benedick, and the 
history of his supposed love for her, than by the dispraise of herself. 
The immediate success of the trick is a most natural consequence of the 
self-assurance and magnanimity of her character ; she is so accustomed 
to assert dominion over the spirits of others, that she cannot suspect 
the possibility of a plot laid against herself. 

A haughty, excitable, and violent temper .'s another of the 
characteristics of Beatrice ; but there is more of impulse than of 



BEATRICE. 43 

passion in her vehemence. In the marriage scene where she has 
beheld her gentle spirited cousin, — whom she loves the more for those 
very qualities which are most unlike her own, — slandered, deserted, 
and devoted to public shame, her indignation, and the eagerness with 
which she hungers and thirsts after revenge, are, like the rest of her 
character, open, ardent, impetuous, but not deep or implacable. When 
she bursts into that outrageous speech — 

Is he not approved \n the height a villain that hath slandered, scorned, dishonored 
my kinswoman ? O that I were a man ! What ! bear her in hand until they come 
to take hands ; and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated 
rancor — O God that I were a man ! I would eat his heart in the market-place ! 

And when she commends her lover, as the first proof of his affection, 
" to kill Claudio," the very consciousness of the exaggeration, — of the 
contrast between the real good-nature of Beatrice and the fierce tenor 
of her language, keeps alive the comic effect, mingling the ludicrous 
with the serious. It is remarkable, that, notwithstanding the point 
and vivacity of the dialogue, few of the speeches of Beatrice are 
capable of a general application, or engrave themselves distinctly on 
the memory ; they contain more mirth than matter ; and though wit be 
the predominant feature in the dramatic portrait, Beatrice more charms 
and dazzles us by what she is, than by what she says. It is not merely 
her sparkling repartees and saucy jests, it is the soul of wit, and the 
spirit of gaiety in forming the whole character, — looking out from her 
brilliant eyes, and laughing on her full lips that pout with scorn, — 
which we have before us, moving and full of life. On the whole, we 
dismiss Benedick and Beatrice to their matrimonial bonds, rather with 
a sense of amusement, than a feeling of congratulation or sympathy ; 
rather with an acknowledgment that they are well-matched, and 
worthy of each other, than with any well-founded expectation of their 
domestic tranquillity. If, as Benedick asserts, they are both, " too wise 
to woo peaceably," it may be added, that both are too wise, too witty, 
and too wilful, to live peaceably together. We have some misgivings 
about Beatrice — some apprehensions, that poor Benedick will not 
escape the "predestinated scratched face," which he had foretold to 
him who should win and wear this quick-witted and pleasant-spirited 



44 BEATRICE. 

lady ; yet when we recollect that to the wit and imperious temper of 
Beatrice is united a magnanimity of spirit which would naturally place 
her far ahove all selfishness, and all paltry struggles for power — when 
we perceive, in the midst of her sarcastic levity and volubility of 
tongue, so much of generous affection, and such a high sense of female 
virtue and honor, we are inclined to hope the best. We think it 
possible that though tne gentleman may now and then swear, and the 
lady scold, the native good-humor of the one, the really fine 
understanding of the other, and the value they so evidently attach to 
each other's esteem, will ensure them a tolerable portion of domestic 
felicity, and in this hope we leave them. 







I 



ROSALIND. 



I come now to Rosalind, whom I should have ranked before 
Beatrice, inasmuch as the greater degree of her sex's softness and 
sensibility, united with equal wit and intellect, give her the superiority 
as a woman ; but that, as a dramatic character, she is inferior in 
force. The portrait is one of infinitely more delicacy and variety, 
but of less strength and depth. It is easy to seize on the prominent 
features in the mind of Beatrice, but extremely difficult to catch and 
fix the more fanciful graces of Rosalind. She is like a compound of 
essences, so volatile in their nature, and so exquisitely blended, that 
on any attempt to analyze them, they seem to escape us. To what 
else shall we compare her, all-enchanting as she is 1 — to the silvery 
summer clouds, which, even while we gaze on them, shift their hues 
and forms, dissolving into air, and light, and rainbow showers 1 — to 
the May morning, flush with opening blossoms and roseate dews, and 
" charm of earliest birds 1 " — to some wild and beautiful melody, 
such as some shepherd boy might " pipe to Amarillis in the shade 1 " 
— to a mountain streamlet, now smooth as a mirror in which the 
skies may glass themselves, and anon leaping and sparkling in the 
sunshine — or rather to the very sunshine itself 1 for so her genial 
spirit touches into life and beauty whatever it shines on ! 

But this impression, though produced by the complete development 
of the character, and in the end possessing the whole fancy, is not 
immediate. The first introduction of Rosalind is less striking than 
interesting ; we see her a dependant, almost a captive, in the house 
of her usurping uncle ; her genial spirits are subdued by her 
situation, and the remembrance of her banished father : her playfulness 
is under a temporary eclipse. 



If! ROSALIND. 

I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry ' 

is an adjuration which Rosalind needed not when once at liberty 
and sporting " under the greenwood tree." The sensibility and even 
pensiveness of her demeanor in the first instance, render her archness 
and gaiety afterwards, more graceful, and more fascinating. 

Though Rosalind is a princess, she is a princess of Arcady ; and 
notwithstanding the charming effect produced hy her first scenes, we 
scarcely ever think of her with a reference to them, or associate her 
with a court, and the artificial appendages of her rank. She was not 
made to " lord it o'er a fair mansion," and take state upon her like 
the all-accomplished Portia ; but to hreathe the free air of heaven 
and frolic among green leaves. She was not made to stand the siege 
of daring profligacy, and oppose high action and high passion to the 
assaults of adverse fortune, like Isahel ; but to " fleet the time 
carelessly as they did i' the golden age." She was not made to 
bandy wit with lords, and tread courtly measures with plumed and 
warlike cavaliers, like Beatrice ; but to dance on the green sward, 
and " murmur among living brooks a music sweeter than their own." 

Though sprightliness is the distinguishing characteristic of Rosalind, 
as of Beatrice, yet we find her much more nearly allied to Portia in 
temper and intellect. The tone of her mind is, like Portia's, genial 
and buoyant : she has something too of her softness and sentiment ; 
there is the same confiding abandonment of self in her affections ; 
but the characters are otherwise as distinct as the situations are 
dissimilar. The age, the manners, the circumstance in which 
Shakspeare has placed his Portia, are not beyond the bounds of 
probability ; nay, have a certain reality and locality. We fancy her 
a cotemporary of the Raffaelles and the Ariostos ; the sea-wedded 
Venice, its merchants, and Magnificos, — the Rialto, and the long 
canals, — rise up before us when we think of her. But Rosalind is 
surrounded with the purely ideal and imaginative ; the reality is in 
the characters and in the sentiments, not in the circumstances or 
situation. Portia is dignified, splendid and romantic; Rosalind is 
playful, pastoral and picturesque : both are in the highest degree 
poetical, but the one is epic and the other lyric. 

Everything about Rosalind breathes of " youth and youth's sweet 



ROSALIND. 47 

prime." She is fresh as the morning, sweet as the dew-awakened 
blossoms, and light as the breeze that plays among them. She is 
as witty, as voluble, as sprightly as Beatrice ; but in a style altogether 
distinct. In both, the wit is equally unconscious ; but in Beatrice it 
plays about us like the lightning, dazzling but also alarming; while 
the wit of Rosalind bubbles up and sparkles like the living fountain, 
refreshing all around. Her volubility is like the bird's song; it is 
the outpouring of a heart filled to overflowing with life, love, and 
joy, and all sweet and affectionate impulses. She has as much 
tenderness as mirth, and in her most petulant raillery there is a 
touch of softness — " By this hand it will not hurt a fly ! " As her 
vivacity never lessens our impression of her sensibility, so she wears 
her masculine attire without the slightest impugnment of her delicacy. 
Shakspeare did not make the modesty of his women depend on their 
dress, as we shall see further when we come to Viola and Imogen. 
Rosalind has in truth " no doublet and hose in her disposition." 
How her heart seems to throb and flutter under her page's vest ! 
What depth of love in her passion for Orlando ! whether disguised 
beneath a saucy playfulness, or breaking forth with a fond impatience, 
or half betrayed in that beautiful scene where she faints at the sight 
of his 'kerchief stained with his blood ! Here her recovery of her 
self-possession — her fears lest she should have revealed her sex — her 
presence of mind, and quick-witted excuse — * 

I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited — 

and the characteristic playfulness which seems to return so naturally 
with her recovered senses, —are all as amusing as consistent. Then 
how beautifully is the dialogue managed between herself and Orlando ! 
how well she assumes the airs of a saucy page, without throwing 
off her feminine sweetness ! How her wit flutters free as air over 
every subject ! With what a careless grace, yet with what exquisite 
propriety ! 

For innocence hath a privilege in her 
To dignify arch jests and laughing eyes. 



IS ROSALIND. 

And if the freedom of some of the expressions used by Rosalind 
or Beatrice be objected to, let it be remembered that this was not 
the fault of Shakspeare or the women, but generally of the age. 
Portia, Beatrice, Rosalind, and the rest, lived in times when more 
importance was attached to things than to words ; now we think 
more of words than of things ; and happy are we in these later 
days of super-refinement, if we are to be saved by our verbal morality. 
But this is meddling with the province of the melancholy Jaques, 
and our argument is Rosalind. 

The impression left upon our hearts and minds by the character 
of Rosalind — by the mixture of playfulness, sensibility, and what the 
French (and we for lack of a better expression) call naivete — is like 
a delicious strain of music. There is a depth of delight, and a 
subtlety of words to express that delight, which is enchanting. Yet 
when we call to mind particular speeches and passages, we find that 
they have a relative beauty and propriety, which renders it difficult 
to separate them from the context without injuring their effect. She 
says some of the most charming things in the world, and some of 
the most humorous : but we apply them as phrases rather than as 
maxims, and remember them rather for their pointed felicity of 
expression and fanciful application, than for their general truth and 
depth of meaning. I will give a few instances : — 

I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras' time — that I was an Irish rat — which 
I can hardly remember.* 

Good, my complexion ! Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, 
that I have a doublet and hose in my disposition ? 

We dwell here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat. 

Love is merely a madness ; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a 
whip as madmen do ; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that 
the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. 

* In Shakspcare's time, there were people in Ireland (there may be so still, for aught 
I know), who undertook to charm rats to death, by chanting certain verses which acted 
as a spell. " Rhyme them to death, as they do rats in Ireland," is a line in one of Ben 
Jonson's comedies ; this will explain Rosalind's humorous allusion. 



ROSALIND. 49 

A traveller ! By my faith you have great reason to be sad. I fear you have sold 
your own lands to see other men's ; then to have seen much and to have nothing 
is to have rich eyes and poor hands. 

Farewell, Monsieur Traveller. Look you lisp, and wear strange suits ; disable all 
the benefits of your own country ; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide 
God for making you that countenance you are ; or I will scarce think you have 
swam in a gondola. 

Break an hour's promise in love ! He that will divide a minute into a thousand 
parts, and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, 
it may bo said of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' the shoulder, but I warrant him 
heart-whole. 

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them — but not for love. 

I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel, and to cry like a woman ; 
but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself 
courageous to petticoat. 

Rosalind has not the impressive eloquence of Portia, nor the sweet 
wisdom of Isabella. Her longest speeches are not her best ; nor is 
her taunting address to Phebe, beautiful and celebrated as it is, 
equal to Phebe's own description of her. The latter, indeed, is more 
in earnest.* 

Celia is more quiet and retired : but she rather yields to Rosalind, 
than is eclipsed by her She is as full of sweetness, kindness, and 
intelligence, quite as susceptible, and almost as witty, though she 
makes less display of wit. She is described as less fair and less 
gifted ; yet the attempt to excite in her mind a jealousy of her 
lovelier friend by placing them in comparison — 

Thou art a fool ; she robs thee of thy name ; 

And thou wilt show more bright, and seem more virtuous, 

When she is gone — 

* Rousseau could describe such a character as Rosalind, but failed to represent it con- 
sistently. "N'est-ce pas de ton cceur que viennent les graces de ton enjouement ? Tea 
railleries sont des signes d'interet plus touchants que les compliments d'un autre. Tu 
caresses quand tu folatres. Tu ris, mais ton rire pe'netre Tame : tu ris, mais tu fais 
pleurer de tcndresse, et je te vois presque toujours serieuse avec les indiflereu*s." — 
Hilo'ise. „ 



50 ROSALIND. 

fails to awaken in the generous heart of Celia any other feeling 
than an increased tenderness and sympathy for her cousin. To Celia, 
Shakspeare has given some of the most striking and animated parts 
■)f the dialogue; and in particular, that exqu. + e description of the 
friendship between her and Rosalind — 

If she be a traitor, 
Why, so am I ; we have still slept together, 
Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together, 
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, 
Still we were coupled and inseparable. 

The feeling of interest and admiration thus excited for Celia at 
the first, follows her through the whole play. We listen to her as 
to one who has made herself worthy of our love ; and her silence 
expresses more than eloquence. 

Phebe is quite an Arcadian coquette ; she is a piece of pastoral 
poetry. Audrey is only rustic. A very amusing effect is produced 
by the contrast between the frank and free bearing of the two 
princesses in disguise, and the scornful airs of the real shepherdess. 
In the speeches of Phebe, and in the dialogue between her and 
Sylvius, Shakspeare has anticipated all the beauties of the Italian 
pastoral, and surpassed Tasso and Guarini. We find two among the 
most poetical passages of the play appropriated to Phebe; the 
taunting speech to Sylvius, and the description of Rosalind in her 
page's costume; — which last is finer than the portrait of Bathyllus in 
Anacreon 



CHARACTERS 



PASSION AND IMAGINATION. 



JULIET. 



O Love! thou teacher — Grief! thou tamer -and Time, thou 
healer of human hearts ! — bring hither all your deep and serious 
revelations ! — And ye too, rich fancies of unbruised, unbowed youth 
— ye visions of long perished hopes — shadows of unborn joys — gay 
colorings of the dawn of existence ! whatever memory hath treasured 
up of bright and beautiful in nature or in art ; all soft and delicate 
images — all lovely forms — divinest voices and entrancing melodies — 
gleams of sunnier skies and fairer climes — Italian moonlights and 
airs that " breathe of the sweet south," — now, if it be possible, 
revive to my imagination — live once more to my heart ! Come, 
thronging around me, all inspirations that wait on passion, on power, 
on beauty ; give me to tread, not bold, and yet unblamed, within the 
inmost sanctuary of Shakspeare's genius, in Juliet's moonlight bower, 
and Miranda's enchanted isle ! 

******** 
It is not without emotion, that I attempt to touch on the character 
of Juliet. Such beautiful things have already been said of her — only 
to be exceeded in beauty by the subject that inspired them ! — it is 
impossible to say anything better ; but it is possible to say some- 
thing more. Such in fact is the simplicity, the truth, and the loveliness 
of Juliet's character, that we are not at first aware of its complexity, 
its depth, and its variety. There is in it an intensity of passion, a 
singleness of purpose, an entireness, a completeness of effect, which 
we feel as a whole; and to attempt to analyze the impression thus 
conveyed at once to soul and sense, is as if while hanging over a 
salf-blown rose, and revelling in its intoxicating perfume, we should 
ell it asunder, leaflet by leaflet, the better to display its bloom and 



54 JULIET. 

fragrance. Yet how otherwise should we disclose the Wonders of ita 
formation, or do justice to the skill of the divirce hand that hath thus 
fashioned it in its heauty ? 

Love, as a passion, forms the groundwork of the drama. Now, 
admitting the axiom of Rochefoucauld, that there is hut one love, 
though a thousand different copies, yet the true sentiment itself has 
as many different aspects as the human soul of which it forms n 
part. It is not only modified by the individual character and 
temperament, but it is under the influence of climate and circumstance. 
The love that is calm in one moment, shall show itself vehement and 
tumultuous at another. The love that is wild and passionate in the 
south, is deep and contemplative in the north 3 as the Spanish or 
Roman girl perhaps poisons a rival, or stabs herself for the sake of 
a living lover, and the German or Russian girl pines into the grave 
for love of the false, the absent, or the dead. Love is ardent or 
deep, bold or timid, jealous or confiding, impatient or humble, 
hopeful or desponding — and yet there are not many loves, but on* 
love. 

All Shakspeare's women, being essentially women, either love or 
have loved, or are capable of loving ; but Juliet is love itself. The 
passion is her state of being, and out of it she has no existence. It 
is the soul within her soul ; the pulse within her heart ; the life-blood 
along her veins, " blending with every atom of her frame." The 
love that is so chaste and dignified in Portia — so airy-delicate and 
fearless in Miranda — so sweetly c.Jifiding in Perdita — so playfully 
fond in Rosalind — so constant in Imogen — so devoted in Desdemona 
— so fervent in Helen — so tender in Viola, — is each and all of these 
in Juliet. All these remind us of her ; but she reminds us of nothing 
but her own sweet self; or if she does, it is of the Gismunda, or tne 
Lisetta, or the Fiammetta of Boccaccio, to whom she is allied, not 
in the character or circumstances, but in the truly Italian spirit 
the glowing, national complexion of the portrait.* 

* Lord Byron remarked of the Italian women (and he could speak avec connaissance 
dc fait), that they are the only women in the world capable of impressions, at once very 
Buc'^en and very durable; which, he adds, is to be found in no other nation. Ml". 
Moove observes afterwards, how completely an Italian woman, either from nature or her 
«oc : ?l position, is led to invert the usual course of frailty among ourselves, and, weak 



JULIET. 

There was an Italian painter who said that the secret of all effect 
n color consisted in white upon black, and black upon white. How 
perfectly did Shakspeare understand this secret of effect ! and how 
beautifully he has exemplified it in Juliet ! 

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows 
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows ! 

Thus she and her lover are in contrast with all around them 
They are all love, surrounded with all hate; all harmony, surrounded 
with all discord: all pure nature, in the midst of polished and 
artificial life. Juliet, like Portia, is the foster child of opulence and 
splendor ; she dwells in a fair city — she has been nurtured in a palace 
—she clasps her robe with jewels — she braids her hair with rainbow- 
tinted pearls; but in herself she has no more connection with the 
trappings around her, than the lovely exotic, transplanted from some 
Eden-like climate, has with the carved and gilded conservatory which 
has reared and sheltered its luxuriant beauty. 

But in this vivid impression of contrast, there is nothing abrupt 
or harsh. A tissue of beautiful poetry weaves together the principal 
figures, and the subordinate personages. The consistent truth of the 
costume, and the exquisite gradations of relief with which the most 
opposite hues are approximated, blend all into harmony. Romeo and 
Juliet are not poetical beings placed on a prosaic back-ground ; nor 
are they, like Thekla and Max in the Wallenstein, two angels of 
•ight amid the darkest and harshest, the most debased and revolting 
aspects of humanity ; but every circumstance, and every personage, 
and every shade of character in each, tends to the development of 
the sentiment which is the subject of the drama. The poetry, too, 
the richest that can possibly be conceived, is interfused through all 
the characters; the splendid imagery lavished upon all with the 
careless prodigality of genius; and the whole is lighted up into such 



in resisting the first impulses of passion, to reserve the whole strength of her character 
lor a display of constancy and devotedncss afterwards. — Both these traits of naauni. 
character are exemplified in Juliet. — Moore's Life of Byron, vol. ii. pp. 303. 3Vi . '. 
lit 



56 JULIET. 

a sunny brilliance of effect, as though Shakspeare t'^d really 
transported himself into Italy, and had drunk to intoxication of her 
genial atmosphere. How truly it has been said, that " althoug' 1 
Romeo and Juliet are in love, they are not love-sick ! " What ;i 
false idea would anything of the mere whining amoroso give us of 
Romeo, such as he really is in Shakspeare — the noble, gallant, 
ardent, brave, and witty ! And Juliet — with even less truth could 
- phrase or idea apply to her! The picture in "Twelfth Night" 
the wan girl dying of love, " who pined in thought, and with o 
,reen and yellow melancholy," would never surely occur to us, whei 
{linking on the enamored and impassioned Juliet, in whose bosom 
love keeps a fiery vigil, kindling tenderness into enthusiasm,, 
enthusiasm into passion, passion into heroism ! No, the who* 
sentiment of the p)ay is of a far different cast. It is flushed witt 
the genial spirit of the south: it tastes of youth, and of the essence 
of youth ; of life, and of the very sap of life.* We have indeed 
the struggle of love against evil destinies, and a thorny world ; the 
pain, the grief, the anguish, the terror, the despair ; the aching 
adieu; the pang unutterable of parted affection; and rapture, truth, 
and tenderness trampled into an early grave : but still an Elysian 
grace lingers round the whole, and the blue sky of Italy bends over 
all! 

In the delineation of that sentiment which forms the groundwork 
of the drama, nothing in fact can equal the power of the picture, but 
its inexpressible sweetness and its perfect grace : the passion which 
has taken possession of Juliet's soul, has the force, the rapidity, the 
resistless violence of the torrent : but she herself as " moving 
delicate," as fair, as soft, as flexible as the willow that bends over 
it, whose light leaves tremble even with the motion of the current 
which hurries beneath them. But at the same time that the 
pervading sentiment is never lost sight of, and is one and the same 
throughout, the individual part of the character in all its variety is 
developed, and marked with the nicest discrimination. For instance, 
— the simplicity of Juliet is very different from the simplicity of 
Miranda : her innocence is not the innocence of a desert island. 

'La slve de. la vie, is an expression used somewhere by Madame dc Stael 



JULIET. 57 

The energy she displays does not once remind us of the moral 
grandeur of Isabel, or the intellectual power of Portia ; — it is 
founded in the strength of passion, not in the strength of character : 
— it is accidental rather than inherent, rising with the tide of feeling 
or temper, and with it subsiding. Her romance is not the pastoral 
romance of Perdita, nor the fanciful romance of Viola ; it is the 
romance of a tender heart and a poetical imagination. Her inexperience 
is not ignorance : she has heard that there is such a thing as 
falsehood, though she can scarcely conceive it. Her mother and her 
nurse have perhaps warned her against flattering vows and man's 
inconstancy ; or she has even 

Turned the tale by Ariosto told, 

Of fair Olympia, loved and left, of old ! 

Hence that bashful doubt, dispelled almost as soon as felt — 

Ah, gentle Romeo ! 
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully. 

That conscious shrinking from her own confession — 

Fain would I dwell on form ; fain, fain deny 
What I have spoke ! 

The ingenuous simplicity of her avowal — 

Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, 

I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay, 

So thou wilt woo — but else, not for the world ! 

In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, 

And therefore thou may'st think my 'havior light, 

But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true 

Than those who have more cunning to be strange. 

And the proud yet timid delicacy, with which she throws herself for 
forbearance and pardon upon the tenderness of him she loves, even 
for the love she bears him — ■ 



58 JULIET. 

Therefore pardon me, 
And not impute this yielding to light love, 
Which the dark night hath so discovered. 

In the alternative, which she afterwards places before her lover with 
such a charming mixture of conscious delicacy and girlish simplicity, 
there is that jealousy of female honor which precept and education 
have infused into her mind, without one real doubt of his truth, or 
the slightest hesitation in her self-abandonment : for she does not 
even wait to hear his asseverations — 

But if thou mean'st not well, I do beseech thee 
To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief. 



So thrive my soul 

JULIET. 

A thousand times, good night ! 

But all these flutterings between native impulses and maiden fea r 
become gradually absorbed, swept away, lost, and swallowed up in 
the depth and enthusiasm of confiding love. 

My bounty is as boundless as the sea, 
My love as deep ; the more I give to you 
The more I have — for both are infinite ! 

What a picture of the young heart, that sees no bound to its 
hopes, no end to its affections ! For " what was to hinder the 
thrilling tide of pleasure which had just gushed from her heart, from 
flowing on without stint or measure, but experience, which she w T as 
yet without ? What was to abate the transport of the first sweet 
sense of pleasure which her heart had just tasted, but indifference, to 
which she was yet a stranger 1 What was there to check the ardor 
of hope, of faith, of constancy, just rising in her breast, but 
disappointment which she had never yet felt ?"* 

* Characters of Shakspeare's Plays. 



JULIET. 59 

Lord Byron's Haidee is a copy of Juliet in the Oriental costume, 
but the development is epic, not dramatic* 

I remember no dramatic character, conveying the same impression 
of singleness of purpose, and devotion of heart and soul, except the 
Thekla of Schiller's Wallenstein ; she is the German Juliet ; far 
unequal, indeed, but conceived, nevertheless, in a kindred spirit. I 
know not if critics have ever compared them, or whether Schiller is 
supposed to have had the English, or rather the Italian, Juliet in his 
fancy when he portrayed Thekla ; but there are some striking 
points of coincidence, while the national distinction in the character 
of the passion leaves to Thekla a strong cast of originality.f The 
Princess Thekla is, like Juliet, the heiress of rank and opulence ; 
her fust introduction to us, in her full dress and diamonds, does not 
impair the impression of her softness and simplicity. We do not 
think of them, nor do we sympathize with the complaint of her 
lover, — 



* I must allude, but with reluctance, to another character, which I have heard 
likened to Juliet, and often quoted as the heroine par excellence of amatory fiction— I 
mean the Julie of Rousseau's Nouvelle Heloise ; I protest against her altogether. As a 
creation of fancy the portrait is a compound of the most gross and glaring 
inconsistencies ; as false and impossible to the reflecting and philosophical mind, as 
the fabled Syrens, Hamadryads and Centaurs to the eye of the anatomist. As a woman, 
Julie belongs neither to nature, nor to artificial society ; and if the pages of melting 
and dazzling eloquence in which Rousseau has garnished out his idol did not blind and 
intoxicate us, as the incense and the garlands did the votaries of Isis, we should be 
disgusted. Rousseau, having composed his Julie of the commonest clay of the earth, 
does not animate her with fire from heaven, but breathes his own spirit into her, and 
then calls the " impetticoated " paradox a woman. He makes her a peg on which to 
hang his own visions and sentiments — and what sentiments ! but that I fear to soil my 
pages, I would pick out a few of them, and show the difference between this strange 
combination of youth and innocence, philosophy and pedantry, sophistical prudery 
and detestable grossiirete", and our own Juliet. No ! if we seek a French Juliet, we 
must go far— far back to the real Heloi'se, to her eloquence, her sensibility, her fervor 
of passion, her devotedness of truth. She, at least, married the man she loved, and 
loved the man she married, and more than died for him ; but enough of both. 

f B. Constant describes her beautifully — " Sa voix si douce au travers le bruit des 
armes, sa forme delicate au milieu de ces hommes tous couverts de fer, la purete de 
eon ame opposee a. leurs calculs avides, son calme celeste qui contraste avec leurs 
agitations, remplissent le spectateur d'une emotion constante et melancolique, telle 
que ne la fait ressentir nulle trag6die ordinaire." 



60 JULIET. 

The dazzle of the jewels which played round you 
Hid the beloved fron> me. 

We almost feel the reply of Thekla before she utters it, — 

Then you saw me 
Not with your heart, but with your eyes ! 

The timidity of Thekla in her first scene, her trembling silence in 
the commencement, and the few words she addresses to her mother, 
remind us of the unobtrusive simplicity of Juliet's first appearance ; 
but the impression is different : the one is the shrinking violet, the 
other the unexpanded rose-bud. Thekla and Max Piccolomini are, like 
Romeo and Juliet, divided by the hatred of their fathers. The death 
of Max, and the resolute despair of Thekla, are also points of 
resemblance ; and Thekla's complete devotion, her frank, yet dignified 
abandonment of all disguise, and her apology for her own unreserve, 
are ouite in Juliet's style, — 

I ought to be less open, ought to hide 
My heart more from thee — so decorum dictates : 
But where in this place wouldst thou seek for truth, 
If in my mouth thou didst not find it ? 

The same confidence, innocence, and fervor of affection, distinguish 
both heroines ; but the love of Juliet is more vehement, the love of 
Thekla is more calm, and reposes more on itself; the love of Juliet 
gives us the idea of infinitude, and that of Thekla of eternity : the 
love of Juliet flows on with an increasing tide, like the river pouring 
to the ocean ; and the love of Thekla stands unalterable, and 
enduring as the rock. In the heart of Thekla love shelters as in 
a home ; but in the heart of Juliet he reigns a crowned king, — " he 
rides on its pants triumphant !" As women, they would divide the 
loves and suffrages of mankind, but not as dramatic characters : the 
moment we come to look nearer we acknowledge that it is indeed 
"rashness and ignorance to compare Schiller with Shakspeare." * 

* Coleridge— preface to Wallenstein. 



JULIET. 61 

Thekla is a fine conception in the German spirit, but Juliet is a 
lovely and palpable creation. The coloring in which Schiller has 
arrayed his Thekla is pale, sombre, vague, compared with the strong- 
individual marking, the rich glow of life and reality, which 
distinguish Juliet. One contrast in particular has always struck me : 
the two beautiful speeches in the first interview between Max and 
Thekla, that in which she describes her father's astrological chamber, 
and that in which he replies with reflections on the influence of 
the stars, are said to " form in themselves a fine poem." They 
do so ; but never would Shakspeare have placed such extraneous 
description and reflection in the mouths of his lovers. Romeo and 
Juliet speak of themselves only ; they see only themselves in the 
universe, all things else are as an idle matter. Not a word they 
utter, though every word is poetry — not a sentiment or description, 
though dressed in the most luxuriant imagery, but has a direct 
relation to themselves, or to the situation in which they are placed, 
and the feelings that engross them : and besides, it may be remarked of 
Thekla, and generally of all tragedy heroines in love, that, however 
beautifully and distinctly characterized, we see the passion only under 
one or two aspects at most, or in conflict with some one circumstance or 
contending duty or feeling. In Juliet alone we find it exhibited 
under every variety of aspect, and every gradation of feeling it 
could possibly assume in a delicate female heart : as we see the 
rose, when passed through the colors of the prism, catch and reflect 
every tint of the divided ray, and still it is the same sweet rose. 

I have already remarked the quiet manner in which Juliet steals 
upon us in her first scene, as the serene, graceful girl, her feelings as 
yet unawakened, and her energies all unknown to herself, and 
unsuspected by others. Her silence and her filial deference are 
charming : — 

I'll look to like, if looking liking move ■ 
But no more deep will I endart mine eye, 
Then your consent shall give it strength to fly. 

Much in the same unconscious way we are impressed with an idea 
of her excelling loveliness : — 



62 JULIET. 

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear ! 

and which could make the dark vault of death " a feasting presence 
full of light." Without any elaborate description, we behold Juliet, 
as she is reflected in the heart of her lover, like a single bright 
star mirrored in the bosom of a deep, transparent well. The rapture 
with which he dwells on the " white wonder of her hand ;" on her 
lips, 

That even in pure and vestal modesty- 
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin. 

And then her eyes, " two of the fairest stars in all the heavens ! " 
[n his exclamation in the sepulchre, 

Ah, dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair! 

there is life and death, beauty and horror, rapture and anguish 
combined. The Friar's description of her approach, 

O, so light a step 
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint ! 

and then her father's similitude, 

Death lies on her like an untimely frost 
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field; — 

all these mingle into a beautiful picture of youthful, airy, delicate 
grace, feminine sweetness and patrician elegance. 

And our impression of Juliet's loveliness and sensibility is enhanced, 
when we find it overcoming in the bosom of Romeo a previous love 
for another. His visionary passion for the cold, inaccessible 
Rosaline, forms but the prologue, the threshold, to the true — the real 
sentiment which succeeds to it. This incident, which is found in the 
original /Story, has been retained by Shakspeare with equal feeling 
and judgment ; and far from being a fault in taste and sentiment, far 
from prejudicing us against Romeo, by casting on him, at the outset 



JULIET. 63 

of the piece, the stigma of inconstancy, it becomes, if properly 
considered, a beauty in the drama, and adds a fresh stroke of truth 
to the portrait of the lover. Why, after all, should we be offended 
at what does not offend Juliet herself? for in the original story we 
find that her attention is first attracted towards Romeo, by seeing 
him " fancy sick and pale of cheer," for love of a cold beauty. 
We must remember that in those times every young cavalier of any 
distinction devoted himself, at his first entrance into the world, to the 
service of some fair lady, who was selected to be his fancy's queen ; 
and the more rigorous the beauty, and the more hopeless the love, 
the more honorable the slavery. To go about "metamorphosed by a 
mistress," as Speed humorously expresses it,* — to maintain her 
supremacy in charms at the sword's point ; to sigh ; to walk with 
folded arms ; to be negligent and melancholy, and to show a 
careless desolation, was the fashion of the day. The Surreys, the 
Sydneys, the Bayards, the Herberts of the time — all those who were 
the mirrors " in which the noble youth did dress themselves," were 
of this fantastic school of gallantry — the last remains of the age of 
chivalry ; and it was especially prevalent , in Italy. Shakspeare has 
ridiculed it in many places with exquisite humor ; but he wished to 
show us that it has its serious as well as its comic aspect. Romeo, 
then, is introduced to us with perfect truth of costume, as the thrall 
of a dreaming, fanciful passion for the scornful Rosaline, who had 
forsworn to love ; and on her charms and coldness, and on the power 
of love generally, he descants to his companions in pretty phrases, 
quite in the style and taste of the day.f 

* In the " Two Gentlemen of Verona." 

t There is an allusion to this court language of love in " All's Well that Ends 
Well ' where Helena says, 

There shall your master have a thousand loves — 

A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign; 

A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear, 

His humble ambition, proud humility, 

His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet, 

His faith, his sweet disaster, with a world 

Of pretty fond adoptious Christendoms 

That blinking Cupid gossips. — Act i.. Scene 1. 



r >4 JULIET. 

Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate 
O anything, of nothing first create ! 
O heavy lightness, serious vanity, 
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms ! 

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs ; 
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes ; 
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears. 

But when once he has beheld Juliet, and quaffed intoxicating 
draughts of hope and love from her soft glance, how all these airy 
fancies fade before the soul-absorbing reality ! The lambent fire that 
played round his heart, burns to that heart's very core. We no 
longer find him adorning his lamentations in picked phrases, or 
making a confidant of his gay companions : he is no longer " for 
the numbers that Petrarch flowed in; "but all is concentrated, earnest, 
rapturous, in the feeling and the expression. Compare, for instance, 
the sparkling antithetical passages just quoted, with one or two of 
his passionate speeches to or of Juliet : — 

Heaven is here, 
Where Juliet lives ! &c. 

Ah Juliet ! if the measure of thy joy 
Be heaped like mine, and that thy skill be more 
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath 
This neighbor air, and let rich music's tongue 
Unfold the imagin'd happiness, that both 
Receive in either by this dear encounter. 

Come what sorrow may, 

It cannot countervail the exchange of joy 

That one short minute gives me in her sight. 

How different ! and how finely the distinction is drawn ! His first 
passion is indulged as a waking dream, a reverie of the fancy ; it is 

The courtly poets of Elizabeth's time, who copied the Italian sonnetteeis of the 
sixteenth century, are full of these quaint conceits. 



JULIET. 65 

depressing, indecent, fantastic; his second elevates him to the third 
heaven, or hurries him to despair. It rushes to its object through 
all impediments, defies all dangers, and seeks at last a triumphant 
grave, in the arms of her he so loved. Thus Romeo's previous 
attachment to Rosaline is so contrived as to exhibit to us another 
variety in that passion which is the subject of the poem, by showing 
us the distinction between the fancied and the real sentiment. It 
adds a deeper effect to the beauty of Juliet; it interests us in the 
commencement for the tender and romantic Romeo ; and gives an 
individual reality to his character, by stamping him like a historical, 
as well as a dramatic portrait, with the very spirit of the age in 
which he lived.* 

It may be remarked of Juliet as of Portia, that we not only trace 
the component qualities in each as they expand before us in the 
course of the action, but we seem to have known them previously, 
and mingle a consciousness of their past, with the interest of then- 
present and their future. Thus, in the dialogue between Juliet and 
her parents, and in the scenes with the Nurse, we seem to have 
before us the whole of her previous education and habits : we see 
her, on the one hand, kept in severe subjection by her austere 
parents ; and on the other, fondled and spoiled by a foolish old 
nurse — a situation perfectly accordant with the manners of the time. 
Then Lady Capulet comes sweeping by with her train of velvet, her 
black hood, her fan, and her rosary — the very beau-ideal of a proud 
Italian matron of the fifteenth century, whose offer to poison Romeo 
in revenge for the death of Tybalt, stamps her with one very 
characteristic trait of the age and country. Yet she loves her 
daughter ; and there is a touch of remorseful tenderness in her 
lamentation over her which adds to our impression of the timid 
softness of Juliet, and the harsh subjection in which she has been 
kept : — 

But one, poor one ! — one poor and loving child, 

But one thing to rejoice and solace in, 

And cruel death hath catched it from my sight ! 

•Since this was written, I have met with some remarks of a similar tendency in that 
most interesting book, " The Life of Lord E. Fitzgerald." 
9 



C6 JULIET. 

Capulet, as the jovial, testy old man, the self-willed violent, 
tyrannical father, — to whom his daughter is hut a property, the 
appanage of his house, and the object of his pride, — is equal as a 
portrait : hut both must yield to the Nurse, who is drawn with the 
most wonderful power and discrimination. In the prosaic homeliness 
of the outline, and the magical illusion of the coloring, she reminds 
us of some of the marvellous Dutch paintings, from which, with all 
their coarseness, we start back as from a reality. Her low humor, 
her shallow garrulity, mixed with the dotage and petulance of age — 
her subserviency, her secresy, and her total want of elevated 
principle, or even common honesty — are brought before us like a 
living and palpable truth. 

Among these harsh and inferior spirits is Juliet placed ; her haughty 
parents, and her plebeian nurse, not only throw into beautiful relief 
her own native softness and elegance, but are at once the cause and 
the excuse of her subsequent conduct. She trembles before her stern 
mother and her violent father : but, like a petted child, alternately 
cajoles and commands her nurse. It is her old foster-mother who is 
the confidante of her love. It is the woman who cherished her 
infancy, who aids and abets her in her clandestine marriage. Do we 
not perceive how immediately our impression of Juliet's character 
would have been lowered, if Shakspeare had placed her in 
connexion with any common-place dramatic waiting-woman 1 — even 
with Portia's adroit Nerissa, or Desdemona's Emilia 1 By giving hei 
the Nurse for her confidante, the sweetness and dignity of Juliet's 
character are preserved inviolate to the fancy, even in the midst of 
all the romance and wilfulness of passion. 

The natural result of these extremes of subjection and independence 
is exhibited in the character of Juliet, as it gradually opens upon us. 
We behold it in the mixture of self-will and timidity, of strength and 
weakness, of confidence and reserve, which are developed as the 
action of the play proceeds. We see it in the fond eagerness of 
the indulged girl, for whose impatience the " nimblest of the 
lightning-winged loves " had been too slow a messenger ; in her 
petulance with her nurse ; in those bursts of vehement feeling, 
which prepare us for the climax of passion at the catastrophe ; in 
her invectives against Romeo, when she hears of the death of Tybalt ; 



JULIET. 67 

in her indignation when the nurse echoes those reproaches, and the 
rising of her temper against unwonted contradiction :- 

NURSE. 

Shame come to Romeo ! 



Blister'd be thy tongue, 
For such a wish ! he was not born to shame. 

Then conies that revulsion of strong feeling, that burst of magnificent 
exultation in the virtue and honor of her lover : — 

Upon Ids brow Shame is asham'd to sit, 

For 'tis a throne where Honor may be crown'd 

Sole monarch of the universal earth ! 

And this, by one of those quick transitions of feeling which belong 
to the character, is immediately succeeded by a gush of tenderness 
and self-reproach — 

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, 
When I, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled it ? 

With the same admirable truth of nature, Juliet is represented as 
at first bewildered by the fearful destiny that closes round her ; 
reverse is new and terrible to one nursed in the lap of luxury, 
and whose energies are yet untried. 

Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems 
Upon so soft a subject as myself. 

While a stay yet remains to her amid the evils that encompass 
her, she clings to it. She appeals to her father — to her mother- 
Good father, I beseech you on my knees, 
Hear me with patience but to speak one word ! 



M JULIET. 

Ah, sweet my mother, cast me not away ! 
Delay this marriage for a month, — a week ! 

And rejected by both, she throws herself upon her nurse in all 
the helplessness of anguish, of confiding affection, of habitual 
dependence — 

O God ! O nurse ! how shall this be prevented 1 
Some comfort, nurse ! 

The old woman, true to her vocation, and fearful lest her share in 
these events should be discovered, counsels her to forget Romeo and 
many Paris ; and the moment which unveils to Juliet the weakness 
and the baseness of her confidante, is the moment which reveals her to 
herself. She does not break into upbraid ings ; it is no moment for 
anger ; it is incredulous amazement, succeeded by the extremity of 
scorn and abhorrence, which take possession of her mind. She 
assumes at once and asserts all her own superiority, and rises to 
majesty in the strength of her despair. 

JULIET. 

Speakest thou from thy heart? 



Aye, and from my soul too; — or else 
Beshrew them both! 

JULIET. 

Amen ! 
This final severing of all the old familiar ties of her childhood — 

Go, counsellor! 
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain ,'. 

and the calm, concentrated force of her resolve, 

If all else fail, — myself have power to die. 



JULIET. 69 

have a sublime pathos. It appears to me also an admirable touch 
of nature, considering the master passion which, at this moment 
rules in Juliet's soul, that she is as much shocked by the nurse's 
dispraise of her lover, as by her wicked, time-serving advice. 

This scene is the crisis in the character ; and henceforth we see 
Juliet assume a new aspect. The fond, impatient, timid girl, puts on 
the ' wife and the woman : she has learned heroism from suffering, 
and subtlety from oppression. It is idle to criticise her dissembling 
submission to her father and mother; a higher duty has taken place 
of that which she owed to them ; a more sacred tie has severed all 
others. Her parents are pictured as they are, that no feeling for 
them may interfere in the slightest degree with our sympathy for 
the lovers. In the mind of Juliet there is no struggle between her 
filial and her conjugal duties, and there ought to be none. The 
Friar, her spiritual director, dismisses her with these instructions : — 

Go home, — be merry, — give consent 
To marry Paris ; 

and she obeys him. Death and suffering in every horrid form she is 
ready to brave, without fear or doubt, " to live an unstained wife : " 
and the artifice to which she has recourse, which she is even 
instructed to use, in no respect impairs the beauty of the character; 
we regard it with pain and pity; but excuse it, as the natural and 
inevitable consequence of the situation in which she is placed. Nor 
should we forget, that the dissimulation, as well as the courage of 
Juliet, though they spring from passion, are justified by principle : — 



My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven : 
How shall my faith return again to earth, 
Unless that husband send it me from heaven ? 



In her successive appeals to her father, her mother, her nurse, and 
the Friar, she seeks those remedies which would first suggest 
themselves to i gentle and virtuous nature, and grasps her da^er 
only as the last resource against dishonor and violated faith; — 



70 JULIET. 

God join'd my heart with Romeo's, — thou our hands. 

And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd, 

Shall be the label to another deed, 

Or my true heart, with treacherous revolt 

Turn to another, — this shall slay them both! 



Thus, in the very tempest and whirlwind of passion and terror, 
preserving, to a certain degree, that moral and feminine dignity 
which harmonizes with our best feelings, and commands our 
unreproved sympathy. 

I reserve my remarks on the catastrophe, which demands separate 
consideration; and return to trace from the opening, another and 
distinguishing trait in Juliet's character. 

In the extreme vivacity of her imagination, and its influence upon 
the action, the language, the sentiments of the drama, Juliet 
resembles Portia ; but with this striking difference. In Portia, the 
imaginative power, though developed in a high degree, is so equally 
blended with the other intellectual and moral faculties, that it does 
not give us the idea of excess. It is subject to her nobler reason ; 
it adorns and heightens all her feelings ; it does not overwhelm 01 
mislead them. In Juliet, it is rather a part of her southern 
temperament, controlling and modifying the rest of her character ; 
springing from her sensibility, hurried along by her passions, 
animating her joys, darkening her sorrows, exaggerating her terrors, 
and, in the end, overpowering her reason. With Juliet, imagination 
is, in the first instance, if not the source, the medium of passion; 
and passion again kindles her imagination. It is through the power 
of imagination that the eloquence of Juliet is so vividly poetical ; 
that every feeling, every sentiment comes to her, clothed in the 
richest imagery, and is thus reflected from her mind to ours. The 
poetry is not here the mere adornment, the outward garnishing of 
the character; but its result, or rather blended with its essence. It 
is indivisible from it, and interfused through it like moonlight 
through the summer air. To particularize is almost impossible, 
since the whole of the dialogue appropriated to Juliet is one rich 
stream of imagery : she speaks in pictures ; and sometimes they are 
crowded one upon another ; — thus in the balcony scene — 



JULIET. 

I have no joy of this contract to-night: 
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, 
Too like the lightning which doth cease to be 
Ere one can say it lightens. 

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, 
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. 



Again, 



O for a falconer's voice 
To lure this tassel-gentle back again! 
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud, 
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies, 
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine 
With repetition of my Romeo's name. 

Here there are three images in the course of six lines. In the 
same scene, the speech of twenty-two lines, beginning, 

Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, 

contains but one figurative expression, the mask of night ; and every 
one reading this speech with the context, must have felt the peculiar 
propriety of its simplicity, though perhaps without examining the 
cause of an omission which certainly is not fortuitous. The reason 
lies in the situation and in the feeling of the moment ; where 
confusion, and anxiety, and earnest self-defence predominate, the 
excitability and play of the imagination would be checked and 
subdued for the time. 

In the soliloquy of the second act, where she is chiding at the 
Nurse's delay : — 

O she is lame ! Love's heralds should be thoughts, 
That ten times faster glide than the sun's beams, 
Driving back shadows over low'ring hills : 
Therefore do nimble-pinioned doves draw Love, 
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings ! 



7 2 JULIET. 

How beautiful ! how the lines mount and float responsive to the 
sense ! She coes on — 



Had she affections, and warm youthful hlood, 
She'd be as swift in motion as a ball ; 
My words should bandy her to my sweet love, 
And his to me ! 

The famous soliloquy, " Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds," teems 
with luxuriant imagery. The fond adjuration, " Come night ! 
come Romeo ! come thou day in night ! " expresses that fulness of 
enthusiastic admiration for her lover, which possesses her whole 
soul ; but expresses it as only Juliet could or would have expressed 
it, — in a bold and beautiful metaphor. Let it be remembered, that, 
in this speech, Juliet is not supposed to be addressing an audience, 
nor even a confidante : and I confess I have been shocked at the 
utter want of taste and refinement in those who, with coarse derision, 
or in a spirit of prudery yet more gross and perverse, have dared 
to comment on this beautiful " Hymn to the Night," breathed out 
by Juliet in the silence and solitude of her chamber. She is thinking 
aloud ; it is the young heart " triumphing to itself in words." In 
the midst of all the vehemence with which she calls upon the night 
to bring Romeo to her arms, there is something so almost infantine 
in her perfect simplicity, so playful and fantastic in the imagery and 
language, that the charm of sentiment and innocence is thrown over 
the whole ; and her impatience, to use her own expression, is truly 
that of " a child before a festival, that hath new robes and may not 
wear them." It is at the very moment, too, that her whole heart and 
fancy are abandoned to blissful anticipation, that the nurse enters 
with the news of Romeo's banishment ; and the immediate transition 
from rapture to despair has a most powerful effect. 

It is the same shaping spirit of imagination which, in the scene 
with the Friar, heaps together all images of horror that ever hung 
upon a troubled dream. 

O bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, 
From off the battlements of yonder tower, 



JULIET. 73 

Or walk in thievish ways ; or bid me lurk 

Where serpents are — chain me with roaring bears, 

Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house 

O'ercovered quite with dead men's rattling bones ; 

Or bid me go inte a new made grave ; 

Or hide me with a dead man in his shroud ; — 

Things that to hear them told have made me tremble ! 

But she immediately adds, — 

And I will do it without fear or doubt, 

To live an unstained wife to my sweet love ! 

In the scene where she drinks the sleeping potion, although her 
spirit does not quail, nor her determination falter for an instant, her 
vivid fancy conjures up one terrible apprehension after another, till 
gradually, and most naturally, in such a mind once thrown off its 
poise, the horror rises to frenzy — her imagination realizes its own 
hideous creations, and she sees her cousin Tybalt's ghost.* 

In particular passages this luxuriance of fancy may seem to wander 
into excess. For instance, — 

O serpent heart, hid with a flowery face ! 
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave ? 
Beautiful tyrant ! fiend angelical ! 
Dove-feather'd raven ! wolfish ravening lamb, &c. 

Yet this highly figurative and antithetical exuberance of language 
is defended by Schlegel on strong and just grounds ; and to me also 
it appears natural, however critics may argue against its taste or 
propriety.f The warmth and vivacity of Juliet's fancy, which plays 

• Juliet, courageously drinking off the potion, after she has placed before herself in 
the most fearful colors all its possible consequences, is compared by Schlegel to the 
famous story of Alexander and his physician. 

f Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together 
Thoughts so all unlike each other ; 
To mutter and mock a broken charm. 
To dally with wrong that does no harm ! 
Perhaps 'tis tender, too, and pretty, 
10 



74 JULIET. 

like a light over every part of her character — which animates every 
line she utters — which kindles every thought into a picture, and 
clothes her emotions in visible images, would naturally, under strong 
and unusual excitement, and in the conflict of opposing sentiments, 
run into some extravagance of diction.* 

With regard to the termination of the play, which has been a 
subject of much critical argument, it is well known that Shakspeare, 
following the old English versions, has departed from the original 
story of Da Porta ;f and I am inclined to believe that Da Porta, in 

At each wild word to feel within 
A sweet recoil of love and pity. 
And what if in a world of sin 
(0 sorrow and shame should this be true !) 
Such giddiness of heart and brain 
Comes seldom save from rage and pain, 
So talks as it's most used to do ? Coleridge. 

These lines seem to me to form the truest comment on Juliet's wild exclamations 
against Romeo. 

* " The censure," observes Schlegel, " originates in a fanciless way of thinking, 
to which everything appears unnatural that does not suit its tame insipidity. 
Hence an idea has been formed of simple and natural pathos, which consists in 
exclamations destitute of imagery, and nowise elevated above every-day life ; but 
energetic passions electrify (he whole mental powers, and will, consequently, in highly- 
favored natures, express themselves in an ingenious and figurative manner." 

f The " Giulietta" of Luigi da Porta was written about 1520. In a popular little 
book published in 1565, thirty years before Shakspeare wrote his tragedy, the name 
of Juliet occurs as an example of faithful love, and is thus explained by a note in 
the margin. " Juliet, a noble maiden of the citie of Verona, which loved Romeo, 
eldest son of the Lord Monteschi ; and being privily married together, he at last 
poisoned himself for love of her : she, for sorrow of his death, slew herself with 
his dagger." This note, which furnishes, in brief, the whole argument of Shakspeare's 
play, might possibly have made the first impression on his fancy. In the novel of Da 
Porta the catastrophe is altogether different. Alter the death of Romeo, the Friar 
Lorenzo endeavors to persuade Juliet to leave the fatal monument. She refuses ; 
and throwing herself back on the dead body of her husband, she resolutely holds her 
breath and dies. — " E voltatasi al giacente corpo di Romeo, il cui capo sopra 
un origliere, che con lei nell' area era stato lasciato, posto aveva ; gli occhi meglio 
rinchiusi avendogli, e di lagrime il freddo volto bagnandogli, disse ;" Che debba 
nenza di te in vita piu fare, signor mio ? e che altro mi resta verso te se non 
colla mia morte seguirti ? " E detto questo, la sua gran sciagura nell' animo recatasi, 
e la perdita del caro amante ricordandosi, deliberando di piii non vivere, raccolto a se il 



JULIET. 75 

making Juliet waken from her trance while Romeo yet lives, and in 
his terrible final scene between the lovers, has himself departed from 
the old tradition, and, as a romance, has certainly improved it ; but 
that which is effective in a narrative, is not always calculated for 
the drama ; and I cannot but agree with Schlegel, that Shakspeare 
has done well and wisely in adhering to the old story. Can we 
doubt for a moment that he who has given us the catastrophe of 
Othello, and the tempest scene in Lear, might also have adopted 
these additional circumstances of horror in the fate of the lovers, and 
have so treated them as to harrow up our very soul — had it been his 
object to do so 1 But apparently it was not. The tale is one, 

Such as, once heard, in gentle heart destroys 
All pain but pity. 

It is in truth a tale of love and sorrow, not of anguish and terror. 
We behold the catastrophe afar off with scarcely a wish to avert it. 
Romeo and Juliet must die ; their destiny is fulfilled : they have 
quaffed off the cup of life, with all its infinite of joys and agonies, 
in one intoxicating draught. "What have they to do more upon this 
earth 1 Young, innocent, loving and beloved, they descend together 
into the tomb : but Shakspeare has made that tomb a shrine of 
martyred and sainted affection concentrated for the worship of all 
hearts, — not a dark charnel vault, haunted by spectres of pain, rage, 



fiato, e per buono spazio tenutolo, e poscia con un gran grido fuori mandandolo, sopra il 
morto corpo, raorta ricadde." 

There is nothing so improbable in the story of Romeo and Juliet as to make us doubt 
the tradition that it is a real fact. " The Veronese," says Lord Byron, in one of his 
letters from Verona, " are tenacious to a degree of the truth of Juliet's story, insisting 
on the fact, giving the date 1303, and showing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and partly 
decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual 
garden — once a cemetery, now ruined, to the very graves ! The situation struck me as 
very appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love." He might have added, 
that when Verona itself, with its amphitheatre and its Palladian structures, lies level 
with the earth, the very spot on which it stood will still be consecrated by the memory 
of Juliet. 

When in Italy, I met a gentleman, who being then " dans le genre romantique," 
wore a fragment of Juliet's tomb set in a ring. 



76 JULIET. 

and desperation. Romeo and Juliet are pictured lovely in death as in 
life ; the sympathy they inspire does not oppress us with that 
suffocating sense of horror, which in the altered tragedy makes the 
fall of the curtain a relief; but all pain is lost in the tenderness 
and poetic beauty of the picture. Romeo's last speech over his bride 
is not like the raving of a disappointed boy : in its deep pathos, its 
rapturous despair, its glowing imagery, there is the very luxury of 
life and love. Juliet, who had drunk off the sleeping potion in a fit 
of frenzy, wakes calm and collected. 

I do remember well where I should be, 
And there I am — Where is my Romeo ? 

The profound slumber in which her senses have been steeped for 
so many hours has tranquillized her nerves, and stilled the fever in 
her blood ; she wakes " like a sweet child who has been dreaming 
of something promised to it by its mother," and opens her eyes to 
ask for it — 

Where is my Romeo ? 

she is answered at once, — 

Thy husband in thy bosom here lies dead. 

This is enough : she sees at once the whole horror of her situation 
— she sees it with a quiet and resolved despair — she utters no 
reproach against the Friar — makes no inquiries, no complaints, except 
that affecting remonstrance — 

O churl — drink all, and leave no friendly drop 
To help me after ! 

All that is left to her is to die, and she dies. The poem, which 
opened with the enmity of the two families, closes with their 
reconciliation over the breathless remains of their children ; and no 
violent, frightful, or discordant feeling is suffered to mingle with that 



JULIET. 77 

soft impression of melancholy left within the heart, and which 
Schlegel compares to one long, endless sigh. 

" A youthful passion," says Goethe (alluding to one of his own 
early attachments), " which is conceived and cherished without any 
certain object, may be compared to a shell thrown from a mortar by 
night : it rises calmly in a brilliant track, and seems to mix, and 
even to dwell for a moment, with the stars of heaven ; but at length 
it falls — it bursts — consuming and destroying all around, even as 
itself expires." 

******** 

To conclude : love, considered under its poetical aspect, is the 
union of passion and imagination ; and accordingly, to one of these, 
or to both, all the qualities of Juliet's mind and heart (unfolding and 
varying as the action of the drama proceeds) may be finally traced ; 
the former concentrating all those natural impulses, fervent affections, 
and high energies, which lend the character its internal charm, its 
moral power and individual interest : the latter diverging from all 
those splendid and luxuriant accompaniments which invest it with 
its external glow, its beauty, its vigor, its freshness, and its truth. 

With all this immense capacity of affection and imagination, there 
is a deficiency of reflection and of moral energy arising from 
previous habit and education : and the action of the drama, while it 
serves to develope the character, appears but its natural and necessary 
result. " Le mystere de l'existence," said Madame de Stael to her 
daughter, "c'est le rapport de nos erreurs avec nos peines." 



HELENA. 



In the character of Juliet we have seen the passionate and the 
imaginative blended in an equal degree, and in the highest 
conceivable degree as combined with delicate female nature. In 
Helena we have a modification of character altogether distinct; 
allied, indeed, to Juliet as a picture of fervent, enthusiastic, self- 
forgetting love," but differing wholly from her in other respects ; for 
Helena is the union of strength of passion with strength of character. 
~ W= R) be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, and yet be able to 
preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable 
heart amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is 
perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it is the utmost 
and rarest endowment of humanity^? Such a character, almost as 
difficult to delineate in fiction as to find in real life, has Shakspeare 
given us in Helena ; touched with the most soul-subduing pathos, 
and developed with the most consummate skill. 

Helena, as a woman, is more passionate than imaginative ; and 
as a character, she bears the same relation to Juliet that Isabel bears 
to Portia. There is equal unity of purpose and effect, with much less 
of the glow of imagery and the external coloring of poetry in the 
sentiments, language and details. It is passion developed under its 
most profound and serious aspect ; as in Isabella, we have the serious 
and the thoughtful, not the brilliant side of intellect. Both Helena 
and Isabel are distinguished by high mental powers, tinged with a 
melancholy sweetness ; but in Isabella the serious and energetic part 
of the character is founded in religious principle ; in Helena it is 
founded in deep passion. 

* Foster's Essays 



80 HELENA. 

There never was, perhaps, a more beautiful picture of a woman's 
love, cherished in secret, not self-consuming in silent languishment— 
not pining in thought — not passive and " desponding over its idol " 
— but patient and hopeful, strong in its own intensity, and sustained 
by its own fond faith. The passion here reposes upon itself for all 
its interest ; it derives nothing from art or ornament or circumstance ; 
it has nothing of the picturesque charm or glowing romance of 
Juliet ; nothing of the poetical splendor of Portia, or the vestal 
grandeur of Isabel. The situation of Helena is the most painful and 
degrading in which a woman can be placed. She is poor and lowly ; 
she loves a man who is far her superior in rank, who repays her love 
with indifference, and rejects her hand with scorn. She marries him 
against his will ; he leaves her with contumely on the day of their 
marriage, and makes his return to her arms depend on conditions 
apparently impossible* All the circumstances and details with which 
Helena is surrounded, are shocking to our feelings and wounding to 
our delicacy: and yet the beauty of the character is made to triumph 
over all : and Shakspeare, resting for all his effect on its internal 
resources and its genuine truth and sweetness, has not even availed 
himself of some extraneous advantages with which Helen is 
represented in the original story. She is the Giletta di Narbonna 
of Boccaccio. In the Italian tale, Giletta is the daughter of a 
celebrated physician attached to the court of Roussillon ; she is 
represented as a rich heiress, who rejects many suitors of worth and 
rank, in consequence of her secret attachment to the young Bertram 
de Roussillon. She cures the King of France of a grievous distemper, 
by one of her father's prescriptions ; and she asks and receives as 
her reward the young Count of Roussillon as her wedded husband. 
He forsakes her on their wedding-day, and she retires, by his order, 
to his territory of Roussillon. There she is received with honor, takes 
state upon her in her husband's absence as the " lady of the land," 
administers justice, and rules her lord's dominions so wisely and 
so well, that she is universally loved and reverenced by his subjects. 

* I have read somewhere that the play of which Helena is the heroine (All's Well 
that Ends Well), was at first entitled by Shakspeare " Love's Labor Won." Why the 
title was altered, or by whom, I cannot discover. 



HELENA. 81 

In the meantime, the Count, instead of rejoining her, flies to Tuscany, 
and the rest of the story is closely followed in the drama. The 
beauty, wisdom, and royal demeanor of Giletta are charmingly 
described, as well as her fervent love for Bertram. But Helena, in 
the play, derives no dignity or interest from place or circumstance, 
and rests for all our sympathy and respect solely upon the truth and 
intensity of her affections. 

She is indeed represented to us as one 

Whose beauty did astonish the survey 
Of richest eyes : whose words all ears took captive ; 
Whose dear perfection, hearts that scorn'd to serve, 
Humbly called mistress. 

As her dignity is derived from mental power, without any alloy of 
pride, so her humility has a peculiar grace. If she feels and repines 
over her lowly birth, it is merely as an obstacle which separates her 
from the man she loves. She is more sensible to his greatness than 
her own littleness : she is continually looking from herself up to him, 
not from him down to herself. She has been bred up under the same 
roof with him ; she has adored him from infancy. Her love is not 
" th' infection taken in at the eyes," nor kindled by youthful romance : 
it appears to have taken root in her being ; to have grown with her 
years ; and to have gradually absorbed all her thoughts and faculties, 
until her fancy "carries no favor in it but Bertram's," and "there is 
no living, none, if Bertram be away." 

It may be said that Bertram, arrogant, wayward, and heartless, 
does not justify this ardent and deep devotion. But Helena does not 
behold him with our eyes ; but as he is " sanctified in her idolatrous 
fancy." Dr. Johnson says he cannot reconcile himself to a man who 
marries Helena like a coward, and leaves her like a profligate. This 
is much too severe ; in the first place, there is no necessity that we 
should reconcile ourselves to him. In this consists a part of the 
wonderful beauty of the character of Helena — a part of its womanly 
truth, which Johnson, who accuses Bertram, and those who so plausibly 
defend him, did not understand. If it never happened in real life, 
that a woman, richly endued with heaven's best gifts, loved with all 
11 



82 HELENA. 

her heart, and soul, and strength, a man unequal to or unworthy of 
her, and to whose faults herself alone was blind — I would give up 
the point : hut if it be in nature, why should it not be in 
Shakspeare 1 We are not to look into Bertram's character for the 
spring and source of Helena's love for him, but into her own. She 
loves Bertram, — because she loves him ! — a woman's reason, — but 
here, and sometimes elsewhere, all-sufficient. 

And although Helena tells herself that she loves in vain, a conviction 
stronger than reason tells her that she does not : her love is like 
a religion, pure, holy, and deep : the blessedness to which she has 
lifted her thoughts is for ever before her ; to despair would be a 
crime, — it would be to cast herself away and die. The faith of her 
affection, combining with the natural energy of her character, believing 
all things possible makes them so. It could say to the mountain 
of pride which stands between her and her hopes, " Be thou 
removed ! " and it is removed. This is the solution of her behavior 
in the marriage-scene, where Bertram, with obvious reluctance and 
disdain, accepts her hand, which the King, his feudal lord and 
guardian, forces on him. Her maidenly feeling is at first shocked, 
and she shrinks back — 



That you are well restor'd, ray lord, I am 
Let the rest go. 



But shall she weakly relinquish the golden opportunity, and dash the 
cup from her lips at the moment it is presented 1 Shall she cast 
away the treasure for which she has ventured both life and honor, 
when it is just within her grasp 1 Shall she, after compromising her 
feminine delicacy by the public disclosure of her preference, be thrust 
back into shame, " to blush out the remainder of her life," and die 
a poor, lost, scorned thing 1 This would be very pretty and interesting 
and characteristic in Viola or Ophelia, but not at all consistent with 
that high determined spirit, and moral energy, with which Helena 
is portrayed. Pride is the only obstacle opposed to her. She is not 
despised and rejected as a woman, but as a poor physician's daughter ; 
and this, to an understanding so clear, so strong, so just as Helena's 



HELENA. 83 

is not felt as an unpardonable insult. The mere pride of rank and 
birth is a prejudice of -which she cannot comprehend the force, 
because her mind towers so immeasurably above it ; and, compared to 
the infinite love which swells within her own bosom, it sinks into 
nothing. She cannot conceive that he, to whom she has devoted 
her heart and truth, her soul, her life, her service, must not one 
day love her in return ; and once her own beyond the reach of 
fate, that her cares, her caresses, her unwearied patient tenderness, 
will not at last " win her lord to .look upon her " — 



For time will bring on summer, 
When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns, 
And be as sweet as sharp ! 



It is this fond faith which, hoping all things, enables her to endure 
all things: — which hallows and dignifies the surrender of her 
woman's pride, making it a sacrifice on which virtue and love throw 
a mingled incense. 

The scene in which the Countess extorts from Helen the confession 
of her love, must, as an illustration, be given here. It is, perhaps, 
the finest in the whole play, and brings out all the striking points 
of Helen's character, to which I have already alluded. We must not 
fail to remark, that though the acknowledgment is wrung from her 
with an agony which seems to convulse her whole being, yet when 
once she has given it solemn utterance, she recovers her presence of 
mind, and asserts her native dignity. In her justification of her 
feelings and her conduct, there is neither sophistry, nor self-deception, 
nor presumption, but a noble simplicity, combined with the most 
impassioned earnestness ; while the language naturally rises in its 
eloquent beauty, as the tide of feeling, now first let loose from the 
bursting heart, comes pouring forth in words. The whole scene is 
wonderfully beautiful. 



What is your pleasure, madam ' 



' ; HELENA. 

COUNTESS. 

You know, Helen, I am a mother to you. 

HELENA. 

Mine honorable mistress. 



Nay, a mother ; 
Why not a mother ? When I said a mother, 
Methought you saw a serpent : what 's in mother 
That you start at it? I say, I am your mother 
And put you in the catalogue of those 
That were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen, 
Adoption strives with nature ; and choice breeds 
A native slip to us from foreign seeds. 
You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan, 
Yet I express to you a mother's care : 
God's mercy, maiden ! does it curd thy blood 
To say I am thy mother ? What 's the matter ? 
That this distempered messenger of wet, 
The many-color'd Iris, rounds thine eye ? 
Why ? — that you are my daughter ? 

HELENA. 

That I am not. 

COUNTESS. 

I say, I am your mother. 



Pardon, madam: 
The Count Roussillon cannot be my brother, 
I am from humble, he from honor'd name • 
No note upon my parents, his all noble: 
My master, my dear lord he is: and I 
His servant live, and will his vassal die : 
He must not be my brother. 

COUNTESS. 

Nor I your mother ? 



HELENA. fi5 



Yon arc my mother, madam ; would you were 
(So that my lord, your son, were not my brother) 
Indeed my mother, or, were you both our mothers, 
I care no more for, than I do for Heaven,* 
So I were not his sister; can't no other, 
But I, your daughter, he must be my brother ? 



Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law • 

God shield, you mean it not! daughter and mother 

So strive upon your pulse : what, pale again ? 

My fear hath catch'd your fondness : now I see 

The mystery of your loneliness, and find 

Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross 

You love my son ; invention is asham'd, 

Against the proclamation of thy passion, 

To say, thou dost not : therefore tell me true ; 

But tell me then, 'tis so: — for, look, thy cheeks 

Confess it, one to the other. 

Speak, is 't so? 
If it be so, you have wound a goodly clue! 
If it be not, forswear 't : howe'er, I charge thee 
As heaven shall work in me for thy avail, 
To tell me truly. 

HELENA. 

Good madam, pardon me ! 

COUNTESS. 

Do you love my son? 

HELENA. 

Your pardon, noble mistress ! 

countess. 
Love you my son? 

* i. e. I care as much for as I do for heaven 



HELENA. 

HELENA. 

Do not you love liim, madam ? 



Go not about ; my love hath in 't a bond, 
Whereof the world takes note : come, come, disclose 
The state of your affection; for your passions 
Have to the full appeach'd. 



Then I confess 
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you, 
That before you, and next unto high heaven, 
I love your son: — 

My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love- 
Be not offended; for it hurts not him, 
That he is loved of me ; I follow him not 
By any token of presumptuous suit ; 
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him : 
Yet never know how that desert should be. 
I know I love in vain ; strive against hope ; 
Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve, 
I still pour in the waters of my love, 
And lack not to love still : thus, Indian-like, 
Religious in mine error, I adore 
The sun that looks upon his worshipper, 
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam, 
Let not your hate encounter with my love, 
For loving where you do : but, if yourself, 
Whose aged honor cites a virtuous youth, 
Did ever in so true a flame of liking, 
Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian 
Was both herself and love; O then give pity 
To her, whose state is such, that cannot choose 
But lend and give, where she is sure to lose ; 
That seeks not to find that her search implies, 
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies. 

This old Countess of Roussillon is a charming sketch. She is 
like one of Titian's old women, who still, amid their wrinkles, 



HELENA. 87 

remind us of that soul of beauty and sensibility, which must have 
animated them when young. She is a fine contrast to Lady Capulet 
— benign, cheerful, and affectionate ; she has a benevolent enthusiasm, 
which neither age, nor sorrow, nor pride can wear away. Thus, 
when she is brought to believe that Helen nourishes a secret 
attachment for her son, she observes — 



Even so it was with me when I was young ! 

This thorn 
Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong, 
It is the show and seal of nature's truth, 
When love's strong passion is impross'd in youth. 

Her fond, maternal love for Helena, whom she has brought up : 
her pride in her good qualities overpowering all her own prejudices 
of rank and birth, are most natural in such a mind ; and her 
indignation against her son, however strongly expressed, never forgets 
the mother. 

What angel shall 
Bless this unworthy husband ? he cannot thrive 
Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear 
And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wratli 
Of greatest justice. 

Which of them both 
Is dearest to me — I have no skill in sense 
To make distinction. 

This is very skilfully, as well as delicately conceived. In rejecting 
those poetical and accidental advantages which Giletta possesses in 
the original story, Shakspeare has substituted the beautiful character 
of the Countess ; and he has contrived, that, as the character of 
Helena should rest for its internal charm on the depth of her own 
affections, so it should depend for its external interest on the affection 
she inspires. The enthusiastic tenderness of the old Countess, the 
admiration and respect of the King, Lafeu, and all who are brought 
in connexion with her, make amends for the humiliating neglect 
of Bertram ; and cast round Helen that collateral light, which 



88 HELENA. 

Giletta in the story owes to other circumstances, striking indeed, and 
well imagined, but not (I think) so finely harmonizing with the 
character. 

It is also very natural that Helen, with the intuitive discernment 
of a pure and upright mind, and the penetration of a quick-willed 
woman, should be the first to detect the falsehood and cowardice 
of the boaster Parolles, who imposes on every one else. 

It has been remarked, that there is less of poetical imagery in 
this play than in many of the others. A certain solidity in Helen's 
character takes place of the ideal power ; and with consistent truth 
of keeping, the same predominance of feeling over fancy, of the 
reflective over the imaginative faculty, is maintained through the 
whole dialogue. Yet the finest passages in the serious scenes are 
those appropriated to her ; they are familiar and celebrated as 
quotations, but fully to understand their beauty and truth, they should 
be considered relatively to her character and situation ; thus, when 
in speaking of Bertram, she says, " that he is one to whom she 
wishes well," the consciousness of the disproportion between her 
words and her feelings draws from her this beautiful and affecting 
observation, so just in itself, and so true to her situation, and to 
the sentiment which fills her whole heart : — 



"I'is pity 
That wishing well had not a body in't 
Which might be felt : that we, the poorer born, 
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes, 
Might with effects of them follow our friends, 
And act what we must only think, which never 
Returns us thanks. 



Some of her general reflections have a sententious depth and a 
contemplative melancholy, which remind us of Isabella : — 

Our remedies oft in themselves do lie 
Which we ascribe to heaven ; the fated sky 
Gives us free scope ; only doth backward pull 
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. 



HELENA. 89 

Impossible be strange events to those 

That weigh their pains in sense ; and do suppose 

What hath been, cannot be. 



He that of greatest works is finisher, 
Oft does them by the weakest minister ; 
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown, 
When judges have been babes. 

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there 
Where most it promises ; and oft it hits, 
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits. 

Her sentiments in the same manner are remarkable for the union 
of profound sense with the most passionate feeling ; and when her 
language is figurative, which is seldom, the picture presented to us 
is invariably touched either with a serious, a lofty, or a melancholy 
beauty. For instance : — 

It were all one 
That I should love a bright particular star, 
And think to wed it — he's so far above me. 

And when she is brought to choose a husband from among the 
young lords at the court, her heart having already made its election, 
the strangeness of that very privilege for which she had ventured 
all, nearly overpowers her, and she says beautifully • 

The blushes on my cheeks thus whisper me, 
" We blush that thou shouldst choose ; — but be refused, 
Let the white death sit on that cheek for ever, 
We'll ne'er come there again ! " 

In her soliloquy after she has been forsaken by Bertram, the beauty 

lies in the intense feeling, the force and simplicity of the expressions. 

There is little imagery, and whenever it occurs, it is as bold as it 

is beautiful, and springs out of the energy of the sentiment, and the 

pathos of the situation. She has been reading his cruel letter 
12 



90 HELENA. 

Till I have no wife I have nothing in France. 
'Tis bitter ! 

Nothing in France, until he has no wife ! 
Thou shalt have none, Roussillon, none in France, 
Then hast thou all again. Poor lord ! is 't I 
That chase thee from thy country, and expose 
Those tender limbs of thine to the event 
Of the none-sparing war ? And is it I 
That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou 
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark 
Of smoky muskets ? O you leaden messengers, 
That ride upon the violent speed of fire, 
Fly with false aim ! move the still-piercing air, 
That sings with piercing, do not touch my lord ! 
Whoever shoots at him, I set him there ; 
Whoever charges on his forward breast, 
I am the caitiff that do hold him to it; 
And though I kill him not, I am the cause 
His death was so effected ; better 't were 
I met the ravin lion when lie roared 
With sharp constraint of hunger ; better 't were 
That all the miseries which nature owes, 
Were mine at once. 

No, no, although 
The air of paradise did fan the house, 
And angels officed all ; I will be gone. 

Though I cannot go the length of those who have defended 
Bertram on almost every point, still I think the censure which 
Johnson has passed on the character is much too severe. Bertram is 
certainly not a pattern hero of romance, but full of faults such as 
we meet with every day in men of his age and class. He is a 
bold, ardent, self-willed youth, just dismissed into the world from 
domestic indulgence, with an excess of aristocratic and military pride, 
but not without some sense of true honor and generosity. I have 
lately read a defence of Bertram's character, written with much 
elegance and plausibility. " The young Count," says this critic, 
" comes before us possessed of a good heart, and of no mean 
capacity, but with a haughtiness which threatens to dull the kinder 



HELENA. 91 

passions, and to cloud the intellect. This is the inevitable 
consequence of an illustrious education. The glare of his birthright 
has dazzled his young faculties. Perhaps the first words he could 
distinguish were from the important nurse, giving elaborate directions 
about his lordship's pap. As soon as he could walk, a crowd of 
submissive vassals doffed their caps, and hailed his first appearance 
on his legs. His spelling-book had the arms of the family 
emblazoned on the cover. He had been accustomed to hear himself 
called the great, the mighty son of Roussillon, ever since he was a 
helpless child. A succession of complacent tutors would by no 
means destroy the illusion ; and it is from their hands that Shakspeare 
receives him, while yet in his minority. An overweening pride of 
birth is Bertram's great foible. To cure him of this, Shakspeare 
sends him to the wars, that he may win fame for himself, and thus 
exchange a shadow for a reality. There the great dignity that his 
valor acquired for him places him on an equality with any one of 
his ancestors, and he is no longer beholden to them alone for the 
world's observance. Thus in his own person he discovers there is 
something better than mere hereditary honors; and his heart is 
prepared to acknowledge that the entire devotion of a Helen's love 
is of more worth than the court-bred smiles of a princess." * 

It is not extraordinary that, in the first instance, his spirit should 
revolt at the idea of marrying his mother's " waiting gentlewoman," 
or that he should refuse her ; yet when the king, his feudal lord, 
whose despotic authority was in this case legal and indisputable, 
threatens him with the extremity of his wrath and vengeance, that 
he should submit himself to a hard necessity, was too consistent with 
the manners of the time to be called cowardice. Such forced 
marriages were not uncommon even in our own country, when the 
right of wardship, now vested in the Lord Chancellor, was exercised 
with uncontrolled and often cruel despotism by the sovereign. 

There is an old ballad, in which the king bestows a maid of 
low degree on a noble of his court, and the undisguised scorn and 
reluctance of the knight, and the pertinacity of the lady, are in 
point. 

• New Monthly Magazine, vol. iv. 



92 HELENA. 

He brought her down full forty pound 
Tyed up within a glove, 

" Fair maid, I'll give the same to thee, 
Go seek another love." 



" O I '11 have none of your gold," she s 
" Nor I '11 have none of your fee ; 

But your fair bodye I must have, 
The king hath granted me." 

Sir William ran and fetched her then, 
Five hundred pounds in gold, 

Saying, " Fair maid, take this to thee, 
My fault will ne'er be told." 

" 'Tis not the gold that shall me tempt,' 
These words then answered she ; 

" But your own bodye I must have, 
The king hath granted me." 

" Would I had drank the water clear, 
When I did drink the wine, 

Rather than any shepherd's brat 
Should be a ladye of mine ! " * 



Bertram's disgust at the tyranny which has made his freedom the 
payment of another's debt, which has united him to a woman 
whose merits are not towards him — whose secret love, and long- 
enduring faith, are yet unknown and untried — might well make his 
bride distasteful to him. He flies her on the very day of their 
marriage, most like a wilful, haughty, angry boy, but not like a 
profligate. On other points he is not so easily defended; and 
Shakspeare, we see, has not defended, but corrected him. The latter 
part of the play is more perplexing than pleasing. We do not, 
indeed, repine with Dr. Johnson, that Bertram, after all his 
misdemeanors, is " dismissed to happiness ; " but, notwithstanding the 

* Percy's Reliques. 



HELENA. 93 

clever defence that has been made for him, he has our pardon rather 
than our sympathy ; and for mine own part, I could find it easier to 
love Bertram as Helena does, than to excuse him j her love for him 
is his best excuse. 



PERDITA. 



In Viola and Perdita the distinguishing traits are the same — 
sentiment and elegance; thus we associate them together, though 
nothing can be more distinct to the fancy than the Doric grace of 
Perdita, compared to the romantic sweetness of Viola. They are 
created out of the same materials, and are equal to each other in the 
tenderness, delicacy, and poetical beauty of the conception. They are 
both more imaginative than passionate ; but Perdita is the more 
imaginative of the two. She is the union of the pastoral and 
romantic with the classical and poetical, as if a dryad of the woods 
had turned shepherdess. The perfections with which the poet has so 
lavishly endowed her, sit upon her with a certain careless and 
picturesque grace, " as though they had fallen upon her unawares." 
Thus Belphoebe, in the Fairy Queen, issues from the flowering forest 
with hair and garments all besprinkled with the leaves and blossoms 
they had entangled in their flight ; and so arrayed by chance and 
"heedless hap," takes all hearts with "stately presence and with 
princely port," — most like to Perdita! 

The story of Florizel and Perdita is but an episode in the 
" Winter's Tale ; " and the character of Perdita is properly kept 
subordinate to that of her mother, Hermione : yet the picture is 
perfectly finished in every part ; — Juliet herself is not more firmly 
and distinctly drawn. But the coloring in Perdita is more silvery 
light and delicate ; the pervading sentiment more touched with the 
ideal ; compared with Juliet, she is like a Guido hung beside a 
Georgione, or one of Paesiello's airs heard after one of Mozart's. 

The qualities which impart to Perdita her distinct individuality, are 
the beautiful combination of the pastoral with the elegant — of 



96 P E R D I T A . 

simplicity with elevation — of spirit with sweetness. The exquisite 
delicacy of the picture is apparent. To understand and appreciate 
its effective truth and nature, we should place Perdita beside some 
of the nymphs of Arcadia, or the Cloris' and Sylvias of the Italian 
pastorals, who, however graceful in themselves, when opposed to 
Perdita, seem to melt away into mere poetical abstractions : — as, in 
Spenser, the fair but fictitious Florimel, which the subtle enchantress 
had moulded out of snow, " vermeil tinctured," and informed with 
an airy spirit, that knew " all wiles of woman's wits," fades and 
dissolves away, when placed next to the real Florimel, in her warm, 
breathing, human loveliness. 

Perdita does not appear till the fourth act, and the w T hole of the 
character is developed in the course of a single scene (the third), 
with a completeness of effect which leaves nothing to be required — 
nothing to be supplied. She is first introduced in the dialogue 
between herself and Florizel, where she compares her own lowly 
state to his princely rank, and expresses her fears of the issue of 
their unequal attachment. With all her timidity and her sense of 
the distance which separates her from her lover, she breathes not a 
single word which could lead us to impugn either her delicacy or 
her dignity. 



These your unusual weeds to each part of you 
Do give a life — no shepherdess, but Flora 
Peering in April's front; this your sheep-shearing 
Is as the meeting of the petty gods, 
And you the queen on't. 



Sir, my gracious lord, 

To chide at your extremes it not becomes me; 

O pardon that I name them: your high self, 

The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured 

With a swain's bearing; and me, poor lowly maid, 

Most goddess-like prank'd up : — but that our feasts 

In every mess have folly, and the feeders 



PERDITA. 97 



Digest it with a custom, I should blush 
To see you so attired ; sworn, I think, 
To show myself a glass. 



The impression of her perfect beauty and airy elegance of 
demeanor is conveyed in two exquisite passages : — 



What you do 
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, 
I'd have you do it ever. When you sing, 
I 'd have you buy and sell so ; so give alms, 
Pray so, and for the ordering your affairs 
To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you 
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do 
Nothing but that ; move still, still so, and own 
No other function. 

I take thy hand ; this hand 
As soft as dove's down, and as white as it ; 
Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow, 
That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er. 



The artless manner in which her innate nobility of soul shines 
forth through her pastoral disguise, is thus brought before us at 
once : — 

This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever 
Ran on the green sward ; nothing she does or seems, 
But smacks of something greater than herself; 
Too noble for tins place. 

Her natural loftiness of spirit breaks out where she is menaced 
and reviled by the King, as one whom his son has degraded himself 
by merely looking on ; she bears the royal frown without quailing ; 
but the moment he is gone, the immediate recollection of herself, 
and of her humble state, of her hapless love, is full of beauty, 
tenderness, and nature : — 

13 



98 P E It D I T A . 

Even here undone ! 
I was much afeard : for once or twice, 
I was about to speak ; and tell him plainly 
The self-same sun, that shines upon his court, 
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but 
Looks on alike. 



Wi 1 't please you, Sir, be gone ? 
I told you what would come of this. Beseech you, 
Of your own state take care ; this dream of mine — 
Being now awake — I '11 queen it no inch further, 
But milk my ewes, and weep. 

How often have I told you 't would be tlnia ! 
How often said, my dignity would last 
But till 'twere known ! 



It cannot fail, but by 
The violation of my faith ; and then 
Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together 
And mar the seeds within ! Lift up thy looks. 



Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may 

Be thereat glean'd ! for all the sun sees, or 

The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide 

In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath 

To thee, my fair beloved ! 



Perdita has another characteristic, which lends to the poetical 
delicacy of the delineation a certain strength and moral elevation, 
which is peculiarly striking. It is that sense, of truth and rectitude, 
that upright simplicity of mind, which disdains all crooked and 
indirect means, which would not stoop for an instance to dissemblance, 
and is mingled with a noble confidence in her love and in her 
lover. In this spirit is her answer to Camilla, who says, courtier- 
like— 



PERDITA. 99 

Besides, you know 
Prosperity 's the very bond of love; 
Whose fresh complexion, and whose heart together, 
Affliction alters. 

To which she replies, — 

One of these is true ; 
I think, affliction may subdue the cheek, 
But not take in the mind. 

In that elegant scene where she receives the guests at the sheep- 
shearing, and distributes the flowers, there is in the full flow of the 
poetry, a most beautiful and striking touch of individual character : 
but here it is impossible to mutilate the dialogue. 

Reverend sirs, 
For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep 
Seeming and savor all the winter long; 
Grace and remembrance be to you both, 
And welcome to our shearing ! 

TOLIXENES. 

Shepherdess 
(A fair one are you), well you fit our ages 
With flowers of winter. 



Sir, the year growing ancient, 
Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth 
Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season 
Are our carnations, and streaked gilliflowers, 
Which some call nature's bastards : of that kind 
Our rustic garden's barren ; and I care not 
To get slips of them. 

FOLIXENES. 

Wherefore, gentle maiden, 
Do you neglect them ? 



100 PERDITA. 



For I have heard it said, 
There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares 
With great creating nature 

POI.IXENES. 

Say there be ; 
Yet nature is made better by no mean 
But nature makes that mean ; so o'er that art 
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art 
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 
A gentle scion to the wildest stock ; 
And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
By bud of nobler race. This is an art 
Which does mend nature, change it rather ; but 
The art itself is nature. 

PERDITA. 

So it is. 

POLIXENES. 

Then make your garden rich in gilliflowers, 
And do not call them bastards. 



I '11 not put 
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them ; 
No more than were I painted, I would wish 
This youth should say 't were well. 

It has been well remarked of this passage, that Perdita does not 
attempt to answer the reasoning of Polixenes : she gives up the 
argument, but, woman-like, retains her own opinion, or rather, her 
sense of right, unshaken by his sophistry. She goes on in a strain 
of poetry, which comes over the soul like music and fragrance 
ningled : we seem to inhale the blended odors of a thousand 
flowers, till the sense faints with their sweetness; and she concludes 
with a touch of passionate sentiment, which melts into the very 
heart : — 



PERDITA. 101 

O Proserpina ! 
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st (an 
From Dis's wagon ! daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses, 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady 
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips, and 
The crown imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
The flower-de-luce being one ! O, these I lack, 
To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend 
To strew him o'er and o'er. 



FLORIZEL. 

What ! like a corse ? 



No, like a bank, for Love to lie and play on ; 
Not like a corse : or if, — not to be buried, 
But quick, and in mine arms ! 



This love of truth, this conscientiousness, which forms so distinct a 
feature in the character of Perdita, and mingles with its picturesque 
delicacy a certain firmness and dignity, is maintained consistently to 
the last. When the two lovers fly together from Bohemia, and take 
refuge in the court of Leontes, the real father of Perdita, Florizel 
presents himself before the king with a feigned tale, in which he 
has been artfully instructed by the old counsellor Camillo. During 
this scene, Perdita does not utter a word. In the strait in which 
they are placed, she cannot deny the story which Florizel relates — 
she will not confirm it. Her silence, in spite of all the compliments 
and greetings of Leontes, has a peculiar and characteristic grace ; 
and, at the conclusion of the scene, when they are betrayed, the 
truth bursts from her as if instinctively and she exclaims, with 
emotion, — 



102 PERDITA. 

The heavens set spies upon us — will not have 
Our contract celebrated. 



After this scene, Perdita says very little. The description of her 
grief, while listening to the relation of her mother's death, — 

" One of the prettiest touches of all. wa?, when at the relation of die (jueen's 
death, with the manner how she came by it, how attentiveness wounded her 
er: till, from one sign of dolor to another, she did, with an alas! I would 
fain say, bleed tears : " — 

her deportment, too, as she stands gazing on the statue of Hermione, 
fixed in wonder, admiration, and sorrow, as if she too were marble, — 

O royal piece ! 
There's magic in thy majesty, which has 
From thy admiring daughter ta'en the spirits, 
Standing like stone beside thee: 

are touches of character conveyed indirectly, and which serve to 
give a more finished effect to this beautiful picture. 



VIOLA. 



As the innate dignity of Perdita pierces through her rustic 
disguise, so the exquisite refinement of Viola triumphs over her 
masculine attire. Viola is, perhaps, in a degree less elevated and 
ideal than Perdita, but with a touch of sentiment more profound 
and heart-stirring ; she is " deep-learned in the lore of love," — at 
least theoretically, — and speaks as masterly on the subject as Perdita 
does of flowers.. 

DUKE. 

How dost thou like this tune? 



It gives a very echo to the seat 
Where love is thron'd. 

And again, 

If I did love you in ray master's flame, 
With such a suffering, such a deadly life — ■ 
In your denial I would find no sense, 
I would not understand it. 

OLIVIA. 

Why what would you do? 



Make me a willow cabin at your gate, 
And call upon my soul within the house ; 



104 VIOLA. 

Write loyal cantons* of contemned love, 
And sing them loud even in the dead of night. 
Holla your name to the reverberate hills, 
And make the babbling gossip of the air 
Cry out, Olivia ! O you should not rest 
Between the elements of air and earth, 
But you should pity me. 

OLIVIA. 

You might do much. 

The situation and the character of Viola have heen censured for 
their want of consistency and probability ; it is therefore worth 
while to examine how far this criticism is true. As for her 
situation in the drama (of which she is properly the heroine), 
it is shortly this. She is shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria : 
she is alone and without protection in a strange country. She 
wishes to enter into the service of the Countess Olivia ; but she 
is assured that this is impossible ; " for the lady having recently 
lost an only and beloved brother, has abjured the sight of men, 
has shut herself up in her palace, and will admit no kind of 
suit." In this perplexity, Viola remembers to have heard her 
father speak with praise and admiration of Orsino, the Duke of 
the country; and having ascertained that he is not married, and 
that therefore his court is not a proper asylum for her in her 
feminine character, she attires herself in the disguise of a page, 
as the best protection against uncivil comments, till she can gain 
some tidings of her brother. 

If we carry our thoughts back to a romantic and chivalrous 
age, there is surely sufficient probability here for all the purposes 
of poetry. To pursue the thread of Viola's destiny ; — she is 
engaged in the service of the Duke, whom she finds " fancy-sick" 
for the love of Olivia. We are left to infer (for so it is hinted 
in the first scene), that this Duke — who with his accomplishments, 
and his personal attractions, his taste for music, his chivalrous 

*i e. canzcns, songs. 



VIOLA. 105 

tenderness, and his unrequited love, is really a very fascinating 
and poetical personage, though a little passionate and fantastic — 
had already made some impression on Viola's imagination ; and 
when she comes to play the confidante, and to be loaded with 
favors and kindness in her assumed character, that she should be 
touched by a passion made up of pity, admiration, gratitude, and 
tenderness, does not, I think, in any way detract from the genuine 
sweetness and delicacy of her character, for "she never told her 
love." 

Now all this, as the critic wisely observes, may not present a 
very just picture of life ; and it may also fail to impart any 
moral lesson for the especial profit of well-bred young ladies : 
but is it not in truth and in nature 1 Did it ever fail to charm 
or to interest, to seize on the coldest fancy, to touch the most 
insensible heart 1 

Viola then is the chosen favorite of the enamored Duke, and 
becomes his messenger to Olivia, and the interpreter of his 
sufferings to that inaccessible beauty. In her character of a 
youthful page, she attracts the favor of Olivia, and excites the 
jealousy of her lord. The situation is critical and delicate; but 
how exquisitely is the character of Yiola fitted to her part, 
carrying her through the ordeal with all the inward and spiritual 
grace of modesty ! What beautiful propriety in the distinction 
drawn between Rosalind and Viola ! The wild sweetness, the 
frolic humor which sports free and unblamed amid the shades of 
Ardennes, would ill become Viola, whose playfulness is assumed 
as part of her disguise as a court page, and is guarded by the 
strictest delicacy. She has not, like Rosalind, a saucy enjoyment 
in her own incognito ; her disguise does not sit so easily upon 
her ; her heart does not beat freely under it. As in the old 
ballad, where " Sweet William" is detected weeping in secret 
over her " man's array, " * so in Viola, a sweet consciousness 
of her feminine nature is for ever breaking through her 
masquerade : — 



' Percy's Reliques, vol. iii. — see the ballad of the "Ladv turning Serving Man." 
14 



106 VIOLA. 

And on her cheek is ready with a blush, 
Modest as morning, when she coldly eyes 
The youthful Phoebus. 

She plays her part well, but never forgets, nor allows us to 
forget, that she is playing a part. 

OLIVIA. 

Are you a comedian ? 



No, my profound heart ! and yet by the very fangs of malice I swear, I «an 
not that I play! 

And thus she comments on it : — 

Disguise, I see thou art wickedness, 
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much ; 
How easy is it for the proper false 
In women's waxen hearts to set their forms ! 
Alas ! our frailty is the cause, not we. 

The feminine cowardice of Viola, which will not allow her even 
to affect a courage becoming her attire, — her horror at the idea 
of drawing a sword, is very natural and characteristic ; and produces 
a most humorous effect, even at the very moment it charms and 
interests us. 

Contrasted with the deep, silent, patient love of Viola for the 
Duke, we have the lady-like wilfulness of Olivia; and her sudden 
passion, or rather fancy, for the disguised page, takes so beautiful a 
coloring of poetry and sentiment, that we do not think her forward. 
Olivia is like a princess of romance, and has all the privileges of 
one ; she is, like Portia, high born and high bred, mistress over her 
servants — but not like Portia, " queen o'er herself." She has never 
in her life been opposed; the first contradiction, therefore, rouses all 
the woman in her, and turns a caprice into a headlong passion ; yet 
she apologizes for herself. 



VIOLA. 107 

have said too much unto a heart of stone, 
And laid mine honor too unchary out ; 
There's something in me that reproves my fault; 
But such a headstrong potent fault it is, 
That it but mocks reproof. 

And in the midst of her self-abandonment, never allows us to 
contemn, even while we pity her : — 

What shall you ask of me that I '11 deny. 
That honor, saved, may upon asking give? 

The distance of rank which separates the Countess Irom the 
youthful page — the real sex of Viola — the dignified elegance of 
Olivia's deportment, except where passion gets the better of her 
pride — her consistent coldness towards the Duke — the description of 
that " smooth, discreet, and stable bearing" with which she rules her 
household — her generous care for her steward Malvolio, in the midst 
of her own distress, — all these circumstances raise Olivia in our 
fancy, and render her caprice for the page a source of amusement 
and interest, not a subject of reproach. Twelfth Night is a genuine 
comedy : — a perpetual spring of the gayest and the sweetest fancies. 
In artificial society men and women are divided into castes and 
classes, and it is rarely that extremes in character or manners can 
approximate. To blend into one harmonious picture the utmost 
grace and refinement of sentiment, and the broadest effects of humor ; 
the most poignant wit, and the most indulgent benignity ; — in short 
to bring before us in the same scene, Viola and Olivia, with Malvolio, 
and Sir Toby, belonged only to Nature and to Shakspeare. 



OPHELIA. 



A woman's affections, however strong, are sentiments, when they 
run smooth ; and become passions only when opposed. 

In Juliet and Helena, love is depicted as a passion, properly so 
called ; that is, a natural impulse, throbbing in the heart's blood, 
and mingling with the very sources of life ; — a sentiment more or 
less modified by the imagination ; a strong abiding principle and 
motive, excited by resistance, acting upon the will, animating all the 
other faculties, and again influenced by them. This is the most 
complex aspect of love, and in these two characters, it is depicted 
in colors at once the most various, the most intense, and the most 
' brilliant. 

In Viola and Perdita, love, being less complex, appears more 
refined ; more a sentiment than a passion — a compound of impulse 
and fancy, while the reflective powers and moral energies are more 
faintly developed. The same remark applies also to Julia and 
Silvia, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, and, in a greater degree, 
to Hermia and Helena in the Midsummer Night's Dream. In the 
two latter, though perfectly discriminated, love takes the visionary 
fanciful cast which belongs to the whole piece ; it is scarcely a 
passion or a sentiment, but a dreamy enchantment, a reverie, which 
a fairy spell dissolves or fixes at pleasure. 

But there was yet another possible modification of the sentiment, 
as combined with female nature ; and this Shakspeare has shown to 
us. He has portrayed two beings, in whom all intellectual and 
moral energy is in a manner latent, if existing ; in whom love is an 
unconscious impulse, and imagination lends the external charm and 
hue, not the internal power ; in whom the feminine character appeal's 



110 OPHELIA. 

resolved into its very elementary principles — as modesty, grace,* 
tenderness. Without these a woman is no woman, but a thing which, 
luckily, wants a name yet ; with these, though every other faculty 
were passive or deficient, she might still he herself. These are the 
inherent qualities with which God sent lis into the world : they 
may be perverted by a bad education — they may be obscured by 
harsh and evil destinies — they may be overpowered by the development 
of some particular mental power, the predominance of some passion ; 
— but they are never wholly crushed out of the woman's soul, while 
it retains those faculties which render it responsible to its Creator. 
Shakspeare then has shown us that these elemental feminine qualities, 
modesty, grace, tenderness, when expanded under genial influences, 
suffice to constitute a perfect and happy human creature : such is 
Miranda. When thrown alone amid harsh and adverse destinies, 
and amid the trammels and corruptions of society, without the 
energy to resist, or will to act, or strength to endure, the end 
must needs be desolation. 

Ophelia — poor Ophelia ! O far too soft, too good, too fair, to be 
cast among the briers of this working-day world, and fall and bleed 
upon the thorns of life ! What shall be said of her 1 for eloquence 
is mute before her ! Like a strain of sad sweet music which comes 
floating by us on the ' wings of night and silence, and which we 
rather feel than hear — like the exhalation of the violet dying even 
upon the sense it charms — like the snow-flake dissolved in air before 
it has caught a stain of earth — like the light surf severed from the 
billow, which a breath disperses — such is the character of Ophelia: so 
exquisitely delicate, it seems as if a touch would profane it ; so 
sanctified in our thoughts by the last and worst of human woes, that 
we scarcely dare to consider it too deeply. The love of Ophelia, 
which she never once confesses, is like a secret which we have stolen 
from her, and which ought to die upon our hearts as upon her own. 
Her sorrow asks not words but tears ; and her madness has precisely 

* By this word, as used here, I would be understood to mean that inexpressible 
something within the soul, which tends to the good, the beautiful, the true, and is 
the antipodes to the vulgar, the violent, and the false ; — that which we see diffused 
externally over the form and movements, where there is perfect innocence and 
unconsciousness, as in children. 



OPHELIA . Ill 

the same effect that would be produced by the spectacle of real insanity, 
if brought before us : we feel inclined to turn away, and veil our 
eyes in reverential pity, and too painful sympathy. 

Beyond every character that Shakspeare has drawn (Hamlet alone 
excepted), that of Ophelia makes us forget the poet in his own 
creation. Whenever we bring her to mind, it is with the same 
exclusive sense of her real existence, without reference to the 
wondrous power which called her into life. The effect (and what an 
effect !) is produced by means so simple, by strokes so few, and so 
unobtrusive, that we take no thought of them. It is so purely 
natural and unsophisticated, yet so profound in its pathos, that, as 
Hazlitt observes, it takes us back to the old ballads ; we forget that, 
in its perfect artlessness, it is the supreme and consummate triumph 
of art. 

The situation of Ophelia in the story* is that of a young girl 
who, at an early age, is brought from a life of privacy into the circle 
of a court — a court such as we read of in those early times, at once 
rude, magnificent and corrupted. She is placed immediately about 
the person of the queen, and is apparently her favorite attendant. 
The affection of the wicked queen for this gentle and innocent 
creature, is one of those beautiful redeeming touches, one of those 
penetrating glances into the secret springs of natural and feminine 
feeling, which we find only in Shakspeare. Gertrude, who is not so 
wholly abandoned but that there remains within her heart some sense 
of the virtue she has forfeited, seems to look with a kind yet 
melancholy complacency on the lovely being she has destined for the 
bride of her son ; and the scene in which she is introduced as 
scattering flowers on the grave of Ophelia, is one of those effects of 
contrast in poetry, in character and in feeling, at once natural and 
unexpected ; which fill the eye, and make the heart swell and tremble 
within itself — like the nightingales singing in the grove of the Furies 
in Sophocles.f 

* i. e. In the story of the drama : for in the original " History of Amleth the 
Dane," from which Shakspeare drew his materials, there is a woman introduced who 
is employed as an instrument to seduce Amleth, but not even the germ of the 
character of Ophelia 

f In the (Edipus Coloneu9. 



112 OPHELIA. 

Again, in the father of Ophelia, the Lord Chamberlain Polonius — 
the shrewd, wary, subtle, pompous, garrulous old corn-tier — have we not 
the very man who would send his son into the world to see all, learn 
all it could teach of good and evil, but keep his only daughter as far as 
possible from every taint of that world he knew so well 1 So that 
when she is brought to the court, she seems, in her loveliness and 
perfect purity, like a seraph that had wandered out of bounds, and yet 
breathed on earth the air of paradise. When her father and her 
brother find it necessary to warn her simplicity, give her lessons of 
worldly wisdom, and instruct her " to be scanter of her maiden 
presence," for that Hamlet's vows of love " but breathe like sanctified 
and pious bonds, the better to beguile," we feel at once that it comes 
too late ; for from the moment she appears on the scene amid the dark 
conflict of crime, and vengeance, and supernatural terrors, we know 
what must be her destiny. Once, at Murano, I saw a dove caught in 
a tempest ; perhaps it was young, and either lacked strength of wing 
to reach its home, or the instinct which teaches to shun the brooding 
storm ; but so it was — and I watched it, pitying, as it flitted, poor 
bird ! hither and thither, with its silver pinions shining against the 
black thunder-cloud, till, after a few giddy whirls, it fell blinded, 
affrighted, and bewildered, into the turbid wave beneath, and was 
swallowed up for ever. It reminded me then of the fate of Ophelia ; 
and now when I think of her, I see again before me that poor dove, 
beating with weary wing, bewildered amid the storm. It is the 
helplessness of Ophelia, arising merely from her innocence, and 
pictured without any indication of weakness, which melts us with such 
profound pity. She is so young, that neither her mind nor her person 
have attained maturity ; she is not aware of the nature of her own 
feelings ; they are prematurely developed in their full force before she 
has strength to bear them ; and love and grief together rend and 
shatter the frail texture of her existence, like the burning fluid poured 
into a crystal vase. She says very little, and what she does say seems 
rather intended to hide than to reveal the emotions of her heart ; yet 
in those few words we are made as perfectly acquainted with her 
character, and witli what is passing in her mind, as if she had thrown 
forth her soul with all the glowing eloquence of Juliet. Passion with 
Juliet seems innate, a part of her being, " as dwells the gathered 



OPHELIA. 113 

lightning in the cloud ; " and we never fancy her but with the dark 
splendid eyes and Titian-like complexion of the south. While in 
Ophelia we recognize as distinctly the pensive, fair-haired, blue-eyed 
daughter of the north, whose heart seems to vibrate to the passion she 
has inspired, more conscious of being loved than of loving ; and yet, 
alas ! loving in the silent depths of her young heart far more than she 
is loved. 

When her brother warns her against Hamlet's importunities — 

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor, 
Hold it a fashion, and a toy of blood, 
A violet in the youth of primy nature, 
Forward not permanent, sweet not lasting, 
The perfume and the suppliance of a minute — 
No more ! 

she replies with a kind of half consciousness — 

No more but so ? 

LAERTES. 

Think it no more. 

He concludes his admonition with that most beautiful passage, in 
which the soundest sense, the most excellent advice, is conveyed in a 
strain of the most exquisite poetry. 

The chariest maid is prodigal enough, 
If she unmask her beauty to the moon : 
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes. 
The canker galls the infants of the spring 
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd : 
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth 
Contagious blastments are most imminent. 

She answers with the same modesty, yet with a kind of involuntary 
avowal, that his fears are not altogether without cause : — 

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep 

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, 
15 



114 OPHELIA . 

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, 
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven ; 
Whilst, like the puff'd and reckless libertine, 
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
And recks not his own read.* 

When her father, immediately afterwards, catechises her on the same 
subject, he extorts from her, in short sentences, uttered with bashful 
reluctance, the confession of Hamlet's love for her, but not a word of 
her love for him. The whole scene is managed with inexpressible 
delicacy : it is one of those instances, common in Shakspeare, in 
which we are allowed to perceive what is passing in the mind of a 
person, without any consciousness on their part. Only Ophelia herself 
is unaware that while she is admitting the extent of Hamlet's courtship, 
she is also betraying how deep is the impression it has made, how entire 
the love with which it is returned. 

POLONIUS. 

What is between you ? give me up the truth ! 



He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders 
Of his affection to me. 



Affection ! poh ! you speak like a green girl, 
Unsifted in such perilous circumstances. 
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them ? 

OPHELIA. 

I do not know, my lord, what I should think. 



Marry, 111 teach you : think yourself a baby ; 
That you have taken these tenders for true pay 
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly ; 

"And recks not hi3 own read," i. e. heeds not his own lessoi 



OPHELIA. 

Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, 
Wronging it thus) you'll tender me a fool. 



My lord, he hath importun'd me with love 
In honorable fashion. 

POLONIUS. 

Ay, fashion you may call it ; go to, go to. 



And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, 
With almost all the holy vows of heaven. 



Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. 

This is for all : 

1 would not, in plain terms, from this time forth 
Have you so slander any moment's leisure 
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet, 
Look to't, I charge you : come your ways. 



I shall obey, my lord. 

Besides its intrinsic loveliness, the character of Ophelia has a 
relative beauty and delicacy when considered in relation to that of 
Hamlet, which is the delineation of a man of genius in contest with 
the powers of this world. The weakness of volition, the instability 
of purpose, the contemplative sensibility, the subtlety of thought, 
always shrinking from action, and always occupied in " thinking too 
precisely on the event," united to immense intellectual power, render 
him unspeakably interesting : and yet I doubt whether any woman, 
who would have been capable of understanding and appreciating such 
a man, would have passionately loved him. Let us for a moment imagine 
any one of Shakspeare's most beautiful and striking female characters 
in immediate connexion with Hamlet. The gentle Desdemona would 
never have despatched her household cares in haste, to listen to 



116 OPHELIA. 

his philosophical speculations, his dark conflicts with his own spirit. 
Such a woman as Portia would have studied him ; Juliet would have 
pitied him ; Rosalind would have turned him over with a smile to 
the melancholy Jacques ; Beatrice would have laughed at him 
outright ; Isabel would have reasoned with him ; Miranda could but 
have wondered at him ; but Ophelia loves him. Ophelia, the young, 
fair, inexperienced girl, facile to every impression, fond in her 
simplicity, and credulous in her innocence, loves Hamlet ; not from 
what lie is in himself, but for that which appears to her — the gentle, 
accomplished prince, upon whom she has been accustomed to see all 
eyes fixed in hope and admiration, " the expectancy and rose of the 
fair state," the star of the court in which she moves, the first 
who has ever whispered soft vows in her ear : and what can be more 
natural 1 

But is it not singular, that while no one entertains a doubt of 
Ophelia's love for Hamlet — though never once expressed by herself, or 
asserted by others, in the whole course of the drama — yet it is 
a subject of dispute whether Hamlet loves Ophelia, though she 
herself allows that he had importuned her with love, and " had given 
countenance to his suit with almost all the holy vows of heaven ;" 
although in the letter which Polonius intercepted, Hamlet declares 
that he loves her " best, most best !" — though he asserts himself, 
with the wildest vehemence, — 

I lov'd Ophelia : forty thousand brothers 
Could not, with all their quantity of love, 
Make up my sum : 

— still I have heard the question canvassed ; I have even heard it 
denied that Hamlet did love Ophelia. The author of the finest 
remarks I have yet seen on the play and character of Hamlet, leans 
to this opinion. As the observations I allude to are contained in 
a periodical publication, and may not be at hand for immediate 
reference, I shall indulge myself (and the reader no less) by quoting 
the opening paragraphs of this noble piece of criticism, upon the 
principle, and for the reason I have already stated in the introduction. 
" We take up a play, and ideas come rolling in upon us, like 



OPHELIA. 117 

waves impelled by a strong wind. There is in the ebo and flow of 
Shakspeare's soul all the grandeur of a mighty operation of nature ; 
and when we think or speak of him, it should be with humility 
where we do not understand, and a conviction that it is rather to the 
narrowness of our own mind than to any failing in the art of the great 
magician, that we ought to attribute any sense of weakness which 
may assail us during the contemplation of his created worlds. 

" Shakspeare himself, had he even been as great a critic as a 
poet, could not have written a regular dissertation upon Hamlet. So 
ideal, and yet so real an existence, could have been shadowed out 
only in the colors of poetry. When a character deals solely or 
chiefly with this world and its events, when it acts and is acted 
upon by objects that have a palpable existence, we see it distinctly, 
as if it were cast in a material mould, as if it partook of the fixed 
and settled lineaments of the things on which it lavishes its sensibilities 
and its passions. We see in such cases the vision of an individual 
soul, as we see the vision of an individual countenance. We can 
describe both, and can let a stranger into our knowledge. But how 
tell in words, so pure, so fine, so ideal an abstraction as Hamlet 1 
We can, indeed, figure to ourselves generally his princely form, 
that outshone all others in manly beauty, and adorn it with the 
consummation of all liberal accomplishment. We can behold in every 
look, every gesture, every motion, the future king, — 

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword, 
Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state ; 
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, 
Th' observ'd of all observers. 

" But when we would penetrate into his spirit, meditate on those 
things on which he meditates, accompany him even unto the brink 
of eternity, fluctuate with him on the ghastly sea of despair, soar 
with him into the purest and serenest regions of human thought, 
feel with him the curse of beholding iniquity, and the troubled delight 
of thinking on innocence, and gentleness, and beauty ; come with 
him from all the glorious dreams cherished by a noble spirit in 



118 OPHELIA. 

the halls of wisdom and philosophy, of a sudden into the gloomy 
courts of sin, and incest, and murder ; shudder with him oyer the 
broken and shattered fragments of all the fairest creations of his 
fancy, — be borne with him at once, from calm, and lofty, and 
delighted speculations, into the very heart of fear, and horror, and 
tribulations, — have the agonies and the guilt of our mortal world 
brought into immediate contact with the world beyond the grave, 
and the influence of an awful shadow hanging for ever on our thoughts, 
— be present at a fearful combat between all the stirred-up passions 
of humanity in the soul of man, a combat in which one and all 
of these passions are alternately victorious and overcome ; I say, that 
when we are thus placed and acted upon, how is it possible to 
draw a character of this sublime drama, or of the mysterious being 
who is its moving spirit ? In him, his character and situation, 
there is a concentration of all the interests that belong to humanity. 
There is scarcely a trait of frailty or of grandeur, which may have 
endeared to us our most beloved friends in real life, that is not to 
be found in Hamlet. Undoubtedly Shakspeare loved him beyond all 
his other creations. Soon as he appears on the stage we are satisfied : 
when absent we long for his return. This is the only play which 
exists almost altogether in the character of one single person. Who 
ever knew a Hamlet in real life 1 yet who, ideal as the character 
is, feels not its reality 1 This is the wonder. We love him not, 
we think of him, not because he is witty, because he was melancholy, 
because he was filial; but we love him because he existed and was 
himself. This is the sum total of the impression. I believe that, 
of every other character, either in tragic or epic poetry, the story 
makes part of the conception ; but of Hamlet, the deep and permanent 
interest is the conception of himself. This seems to belong, not to 
the character being more perfectly drawn, but to there being a more 
intense conception of individual human life than perhaps any other 
human composition. Here is a being with springs of thought, and 
feeling, and action, deeper than we can search. These springs rise 
from an unknown depth, and in that depth there seems to be a 
oneness of being which we cannot distinctly behold, but which we 
believe to be there ; and thus irreconcilable circumstances, floating 



OPHELIA. 119 

on the surface of his actions, have not the effect of making us doubt 
the truth of the general picture."* 

This is all most admirable, most eloquent, most true ! but the critic 
subsequently declares, that " there is nothing in Ophelia which could 
make her the object of an engrossing passion to so majestic a 
spirit as Hamlet." 

Now, though it be with reluctance, and even considerable mistrust 
of myself, that I differ from a critic who can thus feel and write, I do 
not think so : — I do think, with submission, that the love of Hamlet 
for Ophelia is deep, is real, and is precisely the kind of love which 
such a man as Hamlet would feel for such a woman as Ophelia. 

When the heathens would represent their Jove as clothed in all 
his Olympian terrors, they mounted him on the back of an eagle, and 
armed him with the lightnings ; but when in Holy Writ the Supreme 
Being is described as coming in his glory, He is upborne on the wings 
of cherubim, and his emblem is the dove. Even so our blessed 
religion, which has revealed deeper mysteries in the human soul than 
ever were dreamt of by philosophy till she went hand-in-hand with 
faith, has taught us to pay that worship to the symbols of purity and 
innocence, which in darker times was paid to the manifestations of 
power : and therefore do I think that the mighty intellect, the capacious, 
soaring, penetrating genius of Hamlet may be represented, without 
detracting from its grandeur, as reposing upon the tender virgin 
innocence of Ophelia, wjth all that deep delight with which a superior 
nature contemplates the goodness which is at once perfect in itself, 
and of itself unconscious. That Hamlet regards Ophelia with this 
kind of tenderness, — that he loves her with a love as intense as can 
belong to a nature in which there is (I think) much more of 
contemplation and sensibility than action or passion — is the feeling 
and conviction with which I have always read the play of Hamlet. 

As to whether the mind of Hamlet be, or be not, touched with 
madness — this is another point at issue among critics, philosophers, 
ay, and physicians. To me it seems that he is not so far disordered 
as to cease to be a responsible human being — that were too pitiable : 
but rather that his mind is shaken from its equilibrium, and bewildered 

* Blackwood's Magazine, vol. ii 



120 OPHELIA. 

by the horrors of his situation — horrors which his line and subtle 
intellect, his strong imagination, and his tendency to melancholy, at 
once exaggerate, and take from him the power either to endure, or " by 
opposing, end them." We do not see him as a lover, nor as Ophelia 
first beheld him ; for the days when he importuned her with love were 
before the opening of the drama — before his father's spirit revisited the 
earth ; but we behold him at once in a sea of troubles, of perplexities, 
of agonies, of terrors. Without remorse he endures all its horrors ; 
without guilt, he endures all its shame. A loathing of the crime he is 
called on to revenge, which revenge is again abhorrent to his nature, 
has set him at strife with himself; the supernatural visitation has 
perturbed his soul to its inmost depths ; all things else, all interests, all 
hopes, all affections, appear as futile, when the majestic shadow comes 
lamenting from its place of torment " to shake him with thoughts 
beyond the reaches of his soul ! " His love for Ophelia is then 
ranked by himself among those trivial, fond records which he has deeply 
sworn to erase from his heart and brain. He has no thought to link 
his terrible destiny with hers : he cannot marry her : he cannot reveal 
to her, young, gentle, innocent as she is, the terrific influences which 
have changed the whole current of his life and purpose. In his 
distraction he overacts the painful part to which he had tasked himself; 
he is like that judge of the Areopagus, who being occupied with 
graver matters, flung from him the little bird which had sought refuge 
in his bosom, and with such angry violence, that unwittingly he 
killed it. 

In the scene with Hamlet,* in which he madly outrages her and 
upbraids himself, Ophelia says very little : there are two short sentences 
in which she replies to his wild, abrupt discourse : — 

HAMLET. 

I did love you once. 

OPHELIA. 

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. 
* Art iii. scene 1. 



OPHELIA. 121 



You should not have believed me : for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, 
but we shall relish of it. I loved you not. 

OPHELIA. 

I was the more deceived. 

Those who ever heard Mrs. Siddons read the play of Hamlet, cannot 
forget the world of meaning, of love, of sorrow, of despair, conveyed 
in these two simple phrases. Here, and in the soliloquy afterwards, 
where she says, — 

And I of ladies most deject and wretched, 
That sucked the honey of his music vows, 

are the only allusions to herself and her own feelings in the course 
of the play; and these, uttered almost without consciousness on her 
own part, contain the revelation of a life of love, and disclose the 
secret burthen of a heart bursting with its own unuttered grief. She 
believes Hamlet crazed ; she is repulsed, she is forsaken, she is 
outraged, where she had bestowed her young heart, with all its hopes 
and wishes ; her father is slain by the hand of her lover, as it is 
supposed, in a paroxysm of insanity : she is entangled inextricably in 
a web of horrors which she cannot even comprehend, and the 
result seems inevitable. 

Of her subsequent madness, what can be said 1 What an affecting 
— what an astonishing picture of a mind utterly, hopelessly wrecked ! 
— past hope — past cure ! There is the frenzy of excited passion — 
there is the madness caused by intense and continued thought — there 
is the delirium of fevered nerves ; but Ophelia's madness is distinct 
from these : it is not the suspension, but the utter destruction of the 
reasoning powers; it is the total imbecility which, as medical people 
well know, frequently follows some terrible shock to the spirits. 
Constance is frantic; Lear is mad; Ophelia is insane. Her sweet 
mind lies in fragments before us — a pitiful spectacle! Her wild, 
rambling fancies ; her aimless, broken speeches ; her quick transitions 
from gaiety to sadness — each equally purposeless and causeless ; her 



122 OPHELIA. 

snatches of old ballads, such as perhaps her nurse sang her to sleep 
with in her infancy — are all so true to the life, that we forget to 
wonder, and can only weep. It belongs to Shakspeare alone so to 
temper such a picture that we can endure to dwell upon it : — 

Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, 
She turns to favor and to prettiness. 

That in her madness she should exchange her bashful silence for 
empty babbling, her sweet maidenly demeanor for the impatient 
restlessness that spurns at straws, and say and sing precisely what 
she never would or could have uttered had she been in possession 
of her reason, is so far from being an impropriety, that it is an 
additional stroke of nature. It is one of the symptoms of this species 
of insanity, as we are assured by physicians. I have myself known 
one instance in the case of a young Quaker girl, whose character 
resembled that of Ophelia, and whose malady arose from a similar 
cause. 

The whole action of this play sweeps past us like a torrent, which 
hurries along in its dark and resistless course all the personages of 
the drama towards a catastrophe that is not brought about by human 
will, but seems like an abyss ready dug to receive them, where the 
good and the wicked are whelmed together.* As the character of 
Hamlet has been compared, or rather contrasted, with the Greek 
Orestes, being, like him, called on to avenge a crime by a crime, 
tormented by remorseful doubts, and pursued by distraction, so, to 
me, the character of Ophelia hears a certain relation to that of the 
Greek Iphigenia,f with the same strong distinction between the 
classical and the romantic conception of the portrait. Iphigenia led 
forth to sacrifice, with her unresisting tenderness, her mournful 
sweetness, her virgin innocence, is doomed to perish by that relentless 
power, which has linked her destiny with crimes and contests, in 
which she has no part but as a sufferer; and even so, poor Ophelia, 



* Gofthe. See the analysis of Hamlet in Wilhelm Meister. 
t The Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. 



O I' II K L I A . 123 

'" ilivuleil from nerself anil her fair judgment, 1 ' appears here like a 
spotless victim offered up lo the mysterioiu and inexorable fates 

"For it is the property of crime to extend its mischiefs over 
innocence, as it is of virtue to extend its blessings over many that 
deserve them not, while frequently the author of one or the other 
is not, as far as we can see, either punished or rewarded."* But there's 
a heaven above us ! 



MIRANDA 



We might have deemed it impossible to go beyond Viola, Perdita, 
and Ophelia, as pictures of feminine beauty ; to exceed the one in 
tender delicacy, the other in ideal grace, and the last in simplicity, — 
if Shakspeare had not done this ; and he alone could have done it. 
Had he never created a Miranda, we should never have been made 
to feel how completely the purely natural and the purely ideal can 
blend into each other. 

The character of Miranda resolves itself into the very elements of 
womanhood. She is beautiful, modest, and tender, and she is these 
only ; they comprise her whole being, external and internal. She 
is so perfectly unsophisticated, so delicately refined, that she is all 
but ethereal. Let us imagine any other woman placed beside Miranda 
— even one of Shakspeare's own loveliest and sweetest creations — 
there is not one of them that could sustain the comparison for a 
moment ; not one that would not appear somewhat coarse or artificial 
when brought into immediate contact with this pure child of nature, 
this " Eve of an enchanted Paradise." 

What, then, has Shakspeare done 1 — " O wondrous skill and sweet 
wit of the man ! " — he has removed Miranda far from all comparison 
with her own sex; he has placed her between the demi-demnn of 
earth and the delicate spirit of air. The next step is into the ideal 
and supernatural ; and the only being who approaches Miranda, with 
whom she can be contrasted, is Ariel. Beside the subtle essence of 
this ethereal sprite, this creature of elemental light and air, that 
" ran upon the winds, rode the curl'd clouds, and in the colors of 
the rainbow lived," Miranda herself appears a palpable reality, a 
woman, " breathing thoughtful breath," a woman, walking the earth 



126 MIRANDA. 

in her mortal loveliness, with a heart as frail-strung, as passion- 
touched, as ever fluttered in a female bosom. 

I have .said that Miranda possesses merely the elementary attributes 
of womanhood, but each of these stands in her with a distinct and 
peculiar grace. She rerembles nothing upon earth ; but do we 
therefore compare her, in our own minds, with any of those fabled 
beings with which the fancy of ancient poets peopled the forest 
depths, the fountain or the ocean 1 — oread or dryad fleet, sea-maid, 
or naiad of the stream 1 We cannot think of them together. Miranda 
is a consistent, natural, human being. Our impression of her 
nymph-like beauty, her peerless grace and purity of soul, has a 
distinct and individual character. Not only is she exquisitely lovely, 
being what she is, but we are made to feel that she could not possibly 
be otherwise than as she is portrayed. She has never beheld one of 
her own sex ; she has never caught from society one imitated or 
artificial grace. The impulses which have come to her, in her 
enchanted solitude, are of heaven and nature, not of the world and 
its vanities. She has sprung up into beauty beneath the eye of her 
father, the princely magician ; her companions have been the rocks 
and woods, the many-shaped, many-tinted clouds, and the silent stars ; 
her playmates the ocean billows, that stooped their foamy crests, and 
ran rippling to kiss her feet. Ariel and his attendant sprites hovered 
over her head, ministered duteous to her every wish, and presented 
before her pageants of beauty and grandeur. The very air, made 
vocal by her father's art, floated in music around her. If we can 
pre-suppose such a situation with all its circumstances, do we not 
behold in the character of Miranda not only the credible, but the 
natural, the necessary results of such a situation ? She retains her 
woman's heart, for that is unalterable and inalienable, as a part of 
her being ; but her deportment, her looks, her language, her thoughts 
— all these, from the supernatural and poetical circumstances around 
her, assume a cast of the pure ideal ; and to us who are in the 
secret of her human and pitying nature, nothing can be more charming 
and consistent than the effect which she produces upon others, who 
never having beheld anything resembling her, approach her as " a 
wonder," as something celestial : — 



MIRANDA. 

Be sure ! the goddess on whom these airs attend ! 



And 



again : — 



What is this maid ? 
Is she the goddess who hath severed us, 
And brought us thus together ? 

And Ferdinand exclaims, while gazing on her, — 

My spirits as in a dream are all bound up ! 
My father's loss, the weakness that I feel, 
The wreck of all my friends, or this man's threats, 
To whom I am subdued, are but light to me 
Might I but through my prison once a day 
Behold this maid ; all corners else o' the earth 
Let liberty make use of, space enough 
Have I in such a prison. 

Contrasted with the impression of her refined and dignified beauty, 
and its effect on all beholders, is Miranda's own soft simplicity, her 
virgin innocence, her total ignorance' of the conventional forms and 
language of society. It is most natural that in a being thus 
constituted, the first tears should spring from compassion, " suffering 
with those that she saw suffer :" — 

O the cry did knock 
Against my very heart. Poor souls ! they perished. 
Had I been any god of power, I would 
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er 
It should the good ship so have swallowed, 
And the freighting souls within her ; 

and that her first sigh should be offered to a love at once fearless 
and submissive, delicate and fond. She has no taught scruples of 
honor like Juliet ; no coy concealments like Viola ; no assumed 
dignity standing in its own defence. Her bashfulness is less a quality 
than an instinct; it is like the self-folding of a flower, spontaneous 
and unconscious. I suppose there is nothing of the kind in poetry 



128 MIRANDA. 

equal to the scene between Ferdinand and Miranda. In Ferdinand, 
who is a noble creature, we have all the chivalrous magnanimity 
with which man, in a high state of civilisation, disguises his real 
superiority, and does humble homage to the being of whose destiny 
he disposes ; while Miranda, the mere child of nature, is struck with 
wonder at her own new emotions. Only conscious of her own 
weakness as a woman, and ignorant of those usages of society which 
teach us to dissemble the real passion, and assume (and sometimes 
abuse) an unreal and transient power, she is equally ready to place 
her life, her love, her service beneath his feet. 



Alas, now ! pray you, 
Work not so hard : I would the lightning had 
Burnt up those logs, that you are enjoined to pile ! 
Pray set it down and rest you ; when this burns, 
'Twill weep for having weary'd you. My father 
Is hard at study ; pray now, rest yourself ; 
He's safe for these three hours. 

FERDINAND. 

O most dear mistress, 
The sun will set before I shall discharge 
What I must strive to do. 



If you '11 sit down, 
I '11 bear your logs the while. Pray give me thee, 
I '11 cany it to the pile. 

FERDINAND. 



No, precious creature ; 
1 had rather crack my sinews, break my back. 
Than you should such dishonor undergo, 
While I sit lazy by. 



It would become me 
As well as it does you ; and I should do it 



MIRANDA. 129 

With much more ease ; for my good will is to it, 
And yours against. 

MIRANDA. 

You look wearily. 

FERDINAND. 

No, noble mistress ; 'tis fresh morning with me 
When you are by at night. I do beseech you 
(Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers), 
What is your name ? 



Miranda. O my father, 
I have broke your best to say so ! 

FERDINAND. 

Admir'd Miranda ! 
Indeed the top of admiration ; worth 
What's dearest in the world ! Full many a lady 
I have eyed with best regard : and many a time 
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage 
Brought my too diligent ear : for several virtues 
Have I liked several women ; never any 
With so full soul, but some defect in her 
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed 
And put it to the foil. But you, O you, 
So perfect and so peerless, are created 
Of every creature's best ! 



I do not know 

One of my sex : no woman's face remember, 

Save, from my glass, mine own ! nor have I seen 

More that I may call man, than you, good friend, 

And my dear father. How features are abroad 

I am skill-less of: but, by my modesty 

(The jewel in my dower), I would not wish 

Any companion in the world but you ; 

Nor can imagination form a shape, 
17 



130 MIRANDA. 

Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle 
Something too wildly, and my father's precepts 
Therein forget. 

FERDINAND. 

I am, in my condition 
A prince, Miranda — I do think a king — 
I would not so ! and would no more endure 
This wooden slavery, than I would suffer 
The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak : 
The very instant that I saw you, did 
My heart fly to your service, there resides 
To make me slave to it ; and, for your sake, 
Am I this patient log-man. 

MIRANDA. 

Do you love me ? 

FERDINAND. 

O heavens ! O earth ! bear witness to this sound, 
And crown what I profess with kind event, 
If I speak true : if hollowly, invert 
What best is boded me to mischief! I, 
Beyond all limit of what else in the world, 
Do love, prize, honor you. 



I am a fool, 
To weep at what I am glad of. 

FERDINAND. 

Wherefore weep you ? 



At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer 

What I desire to give ; and much less take, 

What I shall die to want. But this is trifling : 

And all the more it seeks to hide itself, 

The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning 



MIRANDA. 

And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! 
I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 
if not I '11 die your maid : to be your fellow 
You may deny me ; but I '11 bo your servant 
Whether you will or no ! 



FERDINAND. 

My mistress, dearest ! 
And I thus humble ever. 



MIRANDA. 

My husband, then ? 

FE RDM AND. 

Ay, with a heart as willing, 

As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand. 



And mine with my heart in it. And now farewell 
Till half an hour hence. 

As Miranda, being what she is, could only have had a Ferdinand lor 
her lover, and an Ariel for her attendant, so she could have had with 
propriety no other father than the majestic and gifted being, who 
fondly claims her as " a thread of his own life — nay, that for which 
he lives." Prospero, with his magical powers, his superhuman wisdom, 
his moral worth and grandeur, and his kingly dignity, is one of the 
most sublime visions that ever swept with ample robes, pale brow, and 
sceptred hand, before the eye of fancy. He controls the invisible world, 
and works through the agency of spirits ! not by any evil and forbidden 
compact, but solely by superior might of intellect — by potent spells 
gathered from the lore of ages, and abjured when he mingles again 
as a man with his fellow men. He is as distinct a being from the 
necromancers and astrologers celebrated in Shakspeare's age, as can 
well be imagined : * and all the wizards of poetry and fiction, even 

• Such as Cornelius Agrippa, Michael Scott, Dr Dee. The last was the contemporary 
if Shakspeare. 



132 MIRANDA. 

Faust and St. Leon, sink into commonplaces before the princely, the 
philosophic, the benevolent Prospero. 

The Bermuda Isles, in which Shakspeare has placed the scene of 
the Tempest, were discovered in his time : Sir George Somers and 
his companions having been wrecked there in a terrible storm,* brought 
back a most fearful account of those unknown islands, which they 
described as " a land of devils — a most prodigious and enchanted place, 
subject to continual tempests and supernatural visitings." Such was 
the idea entertained of the " still-vext Bermoothes " in Shakspeare's 
age ; but later travellers describe them as perfect regions of enchantment 
in a far different sense ; as so many fairy Edens, clustered like a knot 
of gems upon the bosom of the Atlantic, decked out in all the lavish 
luxuriance of nature, with shades of myrtle and cedar, fringed round 
with groves of coral ; in short, each island a tiny paradise, rich 
with perpetual blossoms, in which Ariel might have slumbered, and 
ever-verdant bowers, in which Ferdinand and Miranda might have 
strayed : so that Shakspeare, in blending the wild relations of the 
shipwrecked mariners with his own inspired fancies, has produced 
nothing, however lovely in nature and sublime in magical power, 
which does not harmonize with the beautiful and wondrous reality. 

There is another circumstance connected with the Tempest, which 
is rather interesting. It was produced and acted for the first time 
upon the occasion of the nuptials of the Princess Elizabeth, the 
eldest daughter of James I., with Frederic, the elector palatine. It 
is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the fate of this amiable 
but most unhappy woman, whose life, almost from the period of her 
ma-rriage, was one long tempestuous scene of trouble and adversity. 

********* 

The characters which I have here classed together, as principally 
distinguished by the predominance of passion and fancy, appear to me 
to rise, in the scale of ideality and simplicity, from Juliet to Miranda ; 
the last being in comparison so refined, so elevated above all stain of 
earth, that we can only acknowledge her in connection with it through 
the emotions of sympathy she feels and inspires. 

* In 1609, about three years before Shakspeare produced the Tempest, which, though 
placed first in all the editions of his works, was one of the last of his dramas. 



MIRANDA. 133 

I remember, when I was in Italy, standing " at evening on the top 
of Fesole," and at my feet I beheld the city of Florence and the Val 
d'Arno, with its villas, its luxuriant gardens, groves, and olive grounds, 
all bathed in crimson light. A transparent vapor or exhalation, which 
in its tint was almost as rich as the pomegranate flower, moving with 
soft undulation, rolled through the valley, and the very earth seemed to 
pant with warm life beneath its rosy veil. A dark purple shade, the 
forerunner of night, was already stealing over the east ; in the western 
sky still lingered the blaze of the sunset, while the faint perfume of 
trees, and flowers, and now and then a strain of music wafted upwards, 
completed the intoxication of the senses. But I looked from the earth 
to the sky, and immediately above this scene hung the soft crescent 
moon — alone, with all the bright heaven to herself; and as that sweet 
moon to the glowing landscape beneath it, such is the character of 
Miranda compared to that of Juliet 



CHARACTERS 



THE AFFECTIONS 



H E B M I N E . 



Characters in which the affections and the moral qualities 
predominate over fancy and all that bears the name of passion, are 
not, when we meet with them in real life, the most striking and 
interesting, nor the easiest to be understood and appreciated ; but 
they are those on which, in the long run, we repose with increasing 
confidence and ever-new delight. Such characters are not easily 
exhibited in the colors of poetry, and when we meet with them 
there, we are reminded of the effect of Raffaelle's pictures Sir 
Joshua Reynolds assures us that it took him three weeks to discover 
the beauty of the frescoes in the Vatican ; and many, if they spoke 
truth, would prefer one of Titian's or Murillo's Virgins to one 
of Raffaelle's heavenly Madonnas. The less there is of marked 
expression or vivid color in a countenance or character, the more 
difficult to delineate it in such a manner as to captivate and interest 
us: but when this is done, and done to perfection, it is the miracle 
of poetry in painting, and of painting in poetry. Only Raffaelle 
and Correggio have achieved it in one case, and only Shakspeare in 
the other. 

When, by the presence or the agency of some predominant and 
exciting power, the feelings and affections are upturned from the 
depths of the heart, and flung to the surface, the painter or the poet 
has but to watch the workings of the passions, thus in a manner 
made visible, and transfer them to his page or his canvas, in colors 
more or less vigorous : but where all is calm without and around, to 
dive into the profoundest abysses of character, trace the affections 
where they lie hidden like tbe ocean springs, wind into the most 
intricate involutions of the heart, patiently unravel its most delicate 

1 i 



138 II E 11 M I ONE . 

fibres, and in a few graceful touches place before us the distinct and 
visible result, — to do this demanded power of another and a rarer 
kind. 

There are several of Shakspeare's characters which are especially 
distinguished by this profound feeling in the conception, and subdued 
harmony of tone in the delineation. To them may be particularly 
applied the ingenious simile which Goethe has used to illustrate 
generally all Shakspeare's characters, when he compares them to the 
old-fashioned watches in glass cases, which not only showed the index 
pointing to the hour, but the wheels and springs within, which set 
that index in motion. 

Imogen, Desdemona, and Hermione, are three women placed in 
situations nearly similar, and equally endowed with all the qualities 
which can render that situation striking and interesting. They are 
all gentle, beautiful, and innocent ; all are models of conjugal 
submission, truth, and tenderness ; and all are victims of the 
unfounded jealousy of their husbands. So far the parallel is close, 
but here the resemblance ceases ; the circumstances of each situation 
are varied with wonderful skill, and the characters, which are as 
different as it is possible to imagine, conceived and discriminated 
with a power of truth and a delicacy of feeling yet more 
astonishing. 

Critically speaking, the character of Hermione is the most simple 
in point of dramatic effect, that of Imogen is the most varied and 
complex. Hermione is most distinguished by her magnanimity and 
her fortitude, Desdemona by her gentleness and refined grace, while 
Imogen combines all the best qualities of both, with others which 
they do not possess ; consequently she is, as a character, superior to 
either : but considered as women, I suppose the preference would 
depend on individual taste. 

Hermione is the heroine of the three first acts of the Winter's 
Tale. She is the wife of Leontes, king of Sicilia, and though in 
the prime of beauty and womanhood, is not represented in the first 
bloom of youth. Her husband on slight grounds suspects her of 
infidelity with his friend Polixenes, king of Bohemia; the suspicion 
once admitted, and working on a jealous, passionate, and vindictive 
mind, becomes a settled and confirmed opinion. Hermione is thrown 



HERMIONE. 139 

into a dungeon; her new-born infant is taken from her, and by the 
order of her husband, frantic with jealousy, exposed to death on a 
desert shore ; she is herself brought to a public trial for treason and 
incontinency, defends herself nobly, and is pronounced innocent by 
the oracle. But at the very moment that she is acquitted, she learns 
the death of the prince her son, who 

Conceiving the dishonor of his mother, 
Had straight declined, drooped, took it deeply, 
Fastened and fixed the shame on't in himself, 
Threw off his spirit, appetite, and sleep, 
And downright languished. 

She swoons away with grief, and her supposed death concludes the 
third act. The two last acts are occupied with the adventures of 
her daughter Perdita ; and with the restoration of Perdita to the 
arms of her mother, and the reconciliation of Hermione and Leontes, 
the piece concludes. 

Such, in few words, is the dramatic situation. The character of 
Hermione exhibits what is never found in the other sex, but rarely 
in our own — yet sometimes; dignity without pride, love without 
passion, and tenderness without weakness. To conceive a character 
in which there enters so much of the negative, required perhaps no 
rare and astonishing effort of genius, such as created a Juliet, a 
Miranda, or a Lady Macbeth ; but to delineate such a character in the 
poetical form, to develope it through the medium of action and 
dialogue, without the aid of description : to preserve its tranquil, 
mild, and serious beauty, its unimpassioned dignity, and at the same 
time keep the strongest hold upon our sympathy and our imagination ; 
and out of this exterior calm, produce the most profound pathos, the 
most vivid impression of life and internal power: — it is this which 
renders the character of Hermione one of Shakspeare's masterpieces. 

Hermione is a queen, a matron, and a mother ; she is good and 
beautiful, and royally descended. A majestic sweetness, a grand and 
gracious simplicity, an easy, unforced, yet dignified self-possession, 
are in all her deportment, and in every word she utters. She is one 
of those characters of whom it has been said proverbially, that 



140 HERMIONE. 

" still waters run deep." Her passions are not vehement, but in her 
settled mind the sources of pain or pleasure, love or resentment, 
are like the springs that feed the mountain lakes, impenetrable, 
unfathomable, and inexhaustible. 

Shakspeare has conveyed (as is his custom) a pail of the character 
of Hermione in scattered touches, and through the impressions which 
she produces on all around her. Her surpassing beauty is alluded 
to in few but strong terms :—- 



This jealousy 
Is for a precious creature ; as she is rare 
Must it be great. 

Praise her but for this her out-door form 
(Which, on my faith, deserves high speecli — ). 

If oue by one you wedded all the world, 
Or from the all that are, took something good 
To make a perfect woman ; she you killed 
Would be unparalleled. 

I might have looked upon my queen's full eyes, 
Have taken treasure from her lips — 

and left them 

More rich for what they yielded. 

The expressions " most sacred lady," " dread mistress," " sovereign," 
with which she is addressed or alluded to, the boundless devotion and 
respect of those around her, and their confidence in her goodness and 
innocence, are so many additional strokes in the portrait. 

For her, my lord, 
I dare my life lay down, and will do 't, sir, 
Please you t' accept it, that the queen is spotless 
I' the eyes of heaven, and to you. 

Every inch of woman in the world, 
Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false, 
If she be so. 



HERMIONE. 14 

I would not be a stander-by to hear 

My sovereign mistress clouded so, without 

My present vengeance taken ! 

The mixture of playful courtesy, queenly dignity, and lady-like 
sweetness, with which she prevails on Polixenes to prolong his visit, 
is charming. 

HEKMIONE. , 

You'll stay ! 



No, madam. 

HEKMIONE. 

Nay, but you will. 



POLCCENES. 



I may not, verily. 



Verily ! 
You put me oft* with limber vows ; but I, 
Tho' you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths, 
Should still say, " Sir, no going ! " Verily, 
You shall not go ! A lady's verily is 
As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet ? 
Force me to keep you as a prisoner, 
Not like a guest ? 



And though the situation of Hermione admits but of few general 
reflections, one little speech, inimitably beautiful and characteristic, 
has become almost proverbial from its truth. She says : — 

One good deed, dying tongueless, 
Slaughters a thousand, waiting upon that. 
Our praises are our wages ; you may ride us 
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere 
With spur we heat an acre. 



142 HERMIONE. 

She receives the first intimation of her husband's jealous suspicions 
with incredulous astonishment. It is not that, like Desdemona, she 
does not, or cannot understand ; but she will not. When he accuses 
her more plainly, she replies with a calm dignity : — 

Should a villain say so — 
The most replenished villain in the world — 
He were as much more villain : you, my lord, 
Do but mistake. 

This characteristic composure of temper never forsakes her ; and 
yet it is so delineated that the impression is that of grandeur, and 
never borders upon pride or coldness : it is the fortitude of a gentle 
but a strong mmd, conscious of its own innocence. Nothing can be 
more affecting than her calm reply to Leontes, who, in his jealous 
rage, heaps insult upon insult, and accuses her before her own 
attendants, as no better " than one of those to whom the vulgar give 
bold titles." 

How will this grieve you, 
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that 
You have thus published me ! Gentle my lord, 
You scarce can right me thoroughly then, to say 
You did mistake. 

Her mild dignity and saint-like patience, combined as they are 
with the strongest sense of the cruel injustice of her husband, thrill 
us with admiration as well as pity ; and we cannot but see and feel, 
that for Hermione to give way to tears and feminine complaints 
under such a blow, would be quite incompatible with the character. 
Thus she says of herself, as she is led to prison : — 

There's some ill planet reigns : 
I must be patient till the heavens look 
With an aspect more favorable. Good my lords, 
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex 
Commonly are ; the want of which vain dew 
Perchance shall dry your pities ; but I have 
That honorable grief lodged here, that bums 



HERMIONE. ■ 143 

Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords, 
With thoughts so qualified as your charities 
Shall best instruct you, measure me ; and so 
The king's will be performed. 

When she is brought to trial for supposed crimes, called on to 
defend herself, " standing to prate and talk for life and honor, before 
who please to come and hear her," the sense of her ignominious 
situation — all its shame and all its horror press upon her, and 
would apparently crush even her magnanimous spirit, but for the 
consciousness of her own worth and innocence, and the necessity that 
exists for asserting and defending both. 

If powers divine 
Behold our human actions (as they do), 
I doubt not, then, but innocence shall make 
False accusation blush, and tyranny 
Tremble at patience. 

****** 

For life, I prize it 
As I weigh grief, which I would spare. For honor— 
'Tis a derivative from me to mine, 
And only that I stand for. 

Her earnest, eloquent justification of herself, and her lofty sense of 
female honor, are rendered more affecting and impressive by that 
chilling despair, that contempt for a life which has been made 
bitter to her through unkindness, which is betrayed in every word 
of her speech, though so calmly characteristic. When she enumerates 
the unmerited insults which have been heaped upon her, it is without 
asperity or reproach, yet in a tone which shows how completely the 
iron has entered her soul. Thus when Leontes threatens her with 
death : — 

Sir, spare your threats ; 
The bug which you would fright me with I seek. 
To me can life be no commodity ; 
The crown and comfort of my life, your favor 
I do give lost ; for I do feel it gone, 



144 II H R M I ON E . 

But know not how it went. My second joy, 
The first-fruits of my body, from his presence 
I am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort- 
Starr'd most unluckily ! — is from my breast, 
The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, 
Haled out to murder. Myself on every post 
Proclaimed a strumpet ; with immodest hatred, 
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs 
To women of all fashion. Lastly, hurried 
Here to this place, i' the open air, before 
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, 
Tell me what blessings I have here alive, 
That I should fear to die. Therefore, proceed, 
But yet hear this ; mistake me not. No ! life 
I prize it not a straw : — but for mine honor 
(Which I would free), if I shall be condemned 
Upon surmises ; all proof sleeping else, 
But what your jealousies awake ; I tell you, 
'Tis rigor and not law. 



The character of Hermione is considered open to criticism on one 
point. I have heard it remarked that when she secludes herself 
IVora the world for sixteen years, during which time she is mourned 
as dead by her repentant husband, and is not won to relent from her 
resolve by his sorrow, his remorse, his constancy to her memory ; such 
conduct, argues the critic, is unfeeling as it is inconceivable in a tender 
and virtuous woman. Would Imogen have done so, who is so 
generously ready to grant a pardon before it be asked ? or 
Desdemona, who does not forgive because she cannot even resent? 
No, assuredly ; but this is only another proof of the wonderful 
delicacy and consistency with which Shakspeare has discriminated the 
characters of all three. The incident of Hermione's supposed death 
and concealment for sixteen years, is not indeed very probable in 
itself, nor very likely to occur in every-day life. But besides all 
the probability necessary for the purpose of poetry, it has all the 
likelihood it can derive from the peculiar character of Hermione, 
who is precisely the woman who could and would have acted in 
this- manner. Tn such a mind as hers, the sense of a cruel injury, 
inflicted by one she bad loved and trusted, without awakening anv 



II E R M I N E . 145 

violent anger or any desire of vengeance, would sink deep — almost 
incurably and lastingly deep. So far she is most unlike either 
Imogen or Desdemona, who are portrayed as much more flexible' 
in temper ; but then the circumstances under which she is wronged 
are very different and far more unpardonable. The self-created, 
frantic jealousy of Leontes is very distinct from that of Othello, 
writhing under the arts of Iago : or that of Posthumus, whose 
understanding 1ms been cheated by the most damning evidence of 
his wife's infidelity. The jealousy which in Othello and Posthumus 
is an error of judgment, in Leontes is a vice of the blood ; he 
suspects without cause, condemns without proof; he is without excuse 
— unless the mixture of pride, passion, and imagination, and the 
predisposition to jealousy with which Shakspeare has portrayed him, 
be considered as an excuse. Ilermione has been openly insulted : he 
to whom she gave herself, her heart, her soul, has stooped to the 
weakness and baseness of suspicion ; has doubted her truth, has 
wronged her love, has sunk in her esteem, and forfeited her confident'. 
She has been branded with vile names ; her son, her eldest hope, is 
dead — dead through the false accusation which has stuck infamy on 
his mother's name ; and her innocent babe, stained with illegitimacy, 
disowned and rejected, has been exposed to a cruel death. Can Ave 
believe that the mere tardy acknowledgment of her innocence could 
make amends for wrongs and agonies such as these 1 or heal a 
heart which must have bled inwardly, consumed by that untold 
grief, "which burns worse than tears drown?" Keeping in view 
the peculiar character of Ilermione, such as she is delineated, is 
she one either to forgive hastily or forget quickly 1 and though she 
might, in her solitude, mourn over her repentant husband, would his 
repentance suffice to restore him at once to his place in her heart : 
to efface from her strong and reflecting mind the recollection of his 
miserable weakness 1 or can we fancy this high-souled woman — left 
childless through the injury which has been inflicted on her, widowed 
in heart by the unworthiness of him she loved, a spectacle of 
grief to all — to her husband a continual reproach and humiliation — 
walking through the parade of royalty in the court which hud 
witnessed her anguish, her shame, her degradation, and her despair? 
Methinks, that the want of feeling, nature, delicacy, and consistency 

19 



146 II E R M 1 O N E . 

would lie in such an exhibition as this. In a mind like Hermione's, 
where the strength of feeling is founded in the power of thought, 
and where there is little of impulse or imagination, — " the depth 
but not the tumult of the soul,"* — there are but two influences 
which predominate over the will — time and religion. And what 
then remained, but that, wounded in heart and spirit, she should 
retire from the world? — not to brood over her wrongs, hut to 
study forgiveness, and wait the fulfilment of the oracle which had 
promised the termination of her sorrows. Thus a premature 
reconciliation would not only have been painfully inconsistent with 
the character ; it would also have deprived us of that most 
beautiful scene, in which Hermione is discovered to her husband 
as the statue or image of herself. And here we have another 
instance of that admirable art, with which the dramatic character 
is fitted to the circumstances in which it is placed ; that perfect 
command over her own feelings, that complete self-possession 
necessary to this extraordinary situation, is consistent with all that 
we imagine of Hermione : in any other woman it would be so 
incredible as to shock all our ideas of probability. 

This scene, then, is not only one of the most picturesque and 
striking instances of stage effect to be found in the ancient or 
modern drama, but by the skilful manner in which it is prepared, 
it has, wonderful as it appears, all the merit of consistency and 
truth. The grief, the love, the remorse and impatience of Leontes, 
are finely contrasted with the astonishment and admiration of 
Perdita, who, gazing on the figure of her mother like one 
entranced, looks as if she were also turned to marble. There is 
here one little instance of tender remembrance in Leontes, which 
adds to the charming impression of Hermione's character. 



* The gods approve 

The depth, and not the tumult of the soul. 

Wordsworth. 
" II pouvait y avoir des vagues majestueuses et non de l'orage dans son coeur," 
was finely observed of Madame de Stael in her maturer years ; it would have 
been true of Hermione at any period of her life. 



HERMIONE. JIT 

Chide me, dear stone ! that I may say indeed 
Thou art Hermione ; or rather thou art she 
In thy not chiding, for she was as tender 
As infancy and grace. 

Thus she stood, 
Even with such life of majesty — warm life — 
As now it coldly stands — when first I woo'd her ! 

The effect produced on the different persons of the drama by 
this living statue — an effect which at the same moment is and is 
not illusion — the manner in which the feelings of the spectators 
become entangled between the conviction of death and the impression 
of life, the idea of a deception and the feeling of a reality ; and 
the exquisite coloring of poetry and touches of natural feeling 
with which the whole is wrought up, till wonder, expectation, 
and intense pleasure, hold our pulse and breath suspended on the 
event — are quite inimitable. 

The expressions used here by Leontes, — 

Thus she stood, 
Even with such life of majesty — xcarm life. 

The fixture of her eye has motion in 't. 
And we are mock'd by art! 

And by Polixenes, — 

The very life seems warm upon her lip, 

appear strangely applied to a statue, such as we usually imagine 
it — of the cold colorless marble; but it is evident that in this 
scene Hermione personates one of those images or effigies, such as 
we may see in the old gothic cathedrals, in which the stone or 
marble was colored after nature. I remember coming suddenly 
upon one of these effigies, either at Basle or Fribourg, which 
made me start ; the figure was large as life ; the drapery of 
crimson, powdered with stars of gold ; the face, and eyes, and 
hair tinted after nature, though faded by time : it stood in a 



148 HERMIONE. 

gothic niche, over a tomb, as I think, and in a kind of dim 
uncertain light. It would have been very easy for a living 
person to represent such an effigy, particularly if it had been 
painted by that " rare Italian master, Julio Romano, " * who, as 
we are informed, was the reputed author of this wonderful 
statue. 

The moment when Hermione descends from her pedestal to the 
sound of soft music, and throws herself without speaking into her 
husband's arms, is one of inexpressible interest. It appears to 
me that her silence during the whole of this scene (except where 
she invokes a blessing on her daughter's head) is in the finest 
taste as a poetical beauty, besides being an admirable trait of 
character. The misfortunes of Hermione, her long religious 
seclusion, the wonderful and almost supernatural part she has just 
enacted, have invested her with such a sacred and awful charm, 
that any words put into her mouth must, I think, have injured 
the solemn and profound pathos of the situation. 

There are several among Shakspeare's characters which exercise 
a far stronger power over our feelings, our fancy, our understanding, 
than that of Hermione : but not one, — unless perhaps Cordelia, — 
constructed upon so high and pure a principle. It is the union 
of gentleness with power, which constitutes the perfection of 
mental grace. Thus among the ancients, with whom the graces 
were also the charities (to show, perhaps, that while form alone 
may constitute beauty, sentiment is necessary to grace), one and 
the same word signified equally strength and virtue. This feeling, 
carried into the fine arts, was the secret of the antique grace — the 
grace of repose. The same eternal nature — the same sense of 
immutable truth and beauty, which revealed this sublime principle of 
art to the ancient Greeks, revealed it to the genius of Shakspeare ; 
and the character of Hermione, in which we have the same largeness 
of conception and delicacy of execution, — the same effect of 
suffering without passion, and grandeur without effort, is an instance, 
I think, that he felt within himself, and by intuition, what we 



Winter's Tale, act v. scene II. 



H E II M I O N E . 149 

study all our lives in the remains of ancient art. The calm, 
regular, classical beauty of Hermione's character is the more 
impressive from the wild and gothic accompaniments of her story, 
aucl the beautiful relief afforded by the pastoral and romantic grace 
which is thrown around her daughter Perdita. 

The character of Paulina, in the Winter's Tale, though it has 
obtained but little notice, and no critical remark (that I have seen), 
is yet one of the striking beauties of the play ; and it has its 
moral too. As we see running through the whole universe that 
principle of contrast which may be called the life of nature, so 
we behold it everywhere illustrated in Shakspeare : upon this 
principle he has placed Emilia beside Desdemona, the nurse beside 
Juliet ; the clowns and dairy-maids, and the merry pedlar thief 
Autolycus round Florizel and Perdita ; — and made Paulina the 
friend of Hermionc. 

Paulina does not fill any ostensible office near the person of the 
queen, but is a lady of high rank in the court — the wife of the 
Lord Antigones. She is a character strongly drawn from real and 

common life a clever, generous, strong-minded, warm-hearted 

woman, fearless in asserting the truth, firm in her sense of right, 
enthusiastic in all her affections ; quick in thought, resolute in 
word, and energetic in action ; but heedless, hot-tempered, impatient, 
loud, bold, voluble, and turbulent of tongue; regardless of the 
feelings of those for whom she would sacrifice her life, and injuring 
from excess of zeal those whom she most wishes to serve. How 
many such are there in the world ! But Paulina, though a very 
termagant, is yet a poetical termagant in her way ; and the 
manner in which all the evil and dangerous tendencies of such 
a temper are placed before us, even while the individual character 
preserves the strongest hold upon our respect and admiration, 
forms an impressive lesson, as well as a natural and delightful 
portrait. 

In the scene, for instance, where she brings the infant before 
Leontes, with the hope of softening him to a sense of his 
injustice — " an office which, " as she observes, " becomes a woman 
best" — her want of self-government, her bitter, inconsiderate 
reproaches, only add, as we might easily suppose, to his fury. 






150 HERMIONE 

PAULINA. 

I say I come 
From your good queen ! 

LEONTES. 

Good queen ! 



Good queen, my lord, good queen : I say good queen ; 
And would by combat make her good, so were I 
A man, the worst about you. 



Force her hence. 



Let him that makes but trifles of nis eyes, 
First hand me : on mine own accord I '11 off; 
But first I '11 do mine errand. The good queen 
(For she is good) hath brought you forth a daughter- 
Here 'tis ; commends it to your blessing. 



Traitors ! 
Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard. 



For ever 
Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou 
Tak'st up the princess by that forced baseness 
Which he has put upon 't ! 

LEONTES. 

He dreads his wife. 



So, I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt 
You'd call your children your's. 



II E II M 10 N E. 151 



A callat, 
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband, 
And now baits me ! — this brat is none of mine. 



It is yours, 
And might we lay the old proverb to your charge, 
So like you, 'tis the worse. 



A gross hag ! 
And lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd. 
That wilt not stay her tongue. 

ANTIGONES. 

Hang all the husbands 
That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself 
Hardly one subject. 

LEONTES. 

Once more, take her hence. 



A most unworthy and unnatural lord 
Can do no more. 



LEONTES. 

1 11 have thee burn'd. 



PAULINA. 

I care not: 
It is an heretic that makes the tire, 
Not she which burns in 'L 



152 H E R M I O N E . 

Here, while we honor her courage and her affection, we 
cannot help regretting her violence. We see, too, in Paulina, 
what we so often see in real life, that it is not those who are 
most susceptible in their own temper and feelings, who are most 
delicate and forbearing towards the feelings of others. She does 
not comprehend, or will not allow for the sensitive weakness of 
a mind less firmly tempered than her own. There is a reply 
of Leontes to one of her cutting speeches, which is full of 
feeling, and a lesson to those, who, with the best intentions in the 
world, force the painful truth, like a knife, into the already lacerated 
heart. 



If, one by one, you wedded all the world, 
Or, from the all that are took something good 
To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd 
Would be unparallel'd. 



I think so. Kill'd ! 

She I kill'd ? I did so : but thou strik'st me 

Sorely, to say I did ; it is as bitter 

Upon thy tongue, as in my thought. Now, good now, 

Say so but seldom. 

CLE03IENES. 

Not at all, good lady : 

You might have spoken a thousand things that would 
Have done the time more benefit, and grae'd 
Your kindness better. 



We can only excuse Paulina by recollecting that it is a part of 
her purpose to keep alive in the heart of Leontes the remembrance 
of his queen's perfections, and of his own cruel injustice. It is 
admirable, too, that Hermione and Paulina, while sufficiently 
approximated to afford all the pleasure of contrast, are never 



H E R M I O N E . 153 

brought too nearly in contact on the scene or in the dialogue;* 
for this would have been a fault in taste, and have necessarily 
weakened the effect of both characters : — either the serene grandeur 
of Hermione would have subdued and overawed the fiery spirit of 
Paulina, or the impetuous temper of the latter must have disturbed 
in some respect our impression of the calm, majestic, and somewhat 
melancholy beauty of Hermione. 

* Only in the last scene, when with solemnity befitting the occasion, Paulina 
invokes the majestic ftgure to " descend, and be stone no more," and where she 
presents her daughter to her, " Turn, good lady ! our Perdita is found." 



20 



DESDEMONA. 



The character of Hermione is addressed more to the imagination ; 
that of Desdemona to the feelings. All that can render sorrow 
majestic is gathered round Hermione ; all that can render misery 
heart-breaking is assembled round Desdemona. The wronged but 
self-sustained virtue of Hermione commands our veneration ; the 
injured and defenceless innocence of Desdemona so wrings the soul, 
" that all for pity we could die. " 

Desdemona, as a character, comes nearest to Miranda, both in 
herself as a woman, and in the perfect simplicity and unity of 
the delineation; the figures are differently draped — the proportions 
are the same. There is the same modesty, tenderness, and grace ; 
the same artless devotion in the affections, the same predisposition 
to wonder, to pity, to admire ; the same almost ethereal refinement 
and delicacy ; but all is pure poetic nature within Miranda and 
around her : Desdemona is more associated with the palpable 
realities of every-day existence, and we see the forms and habits 
of society tinting her language and deportment ; no two beings can 
be more alike in character — nor more distinct as individuals. 

The love of Desdemona for Othello appears at first such a 
violation of all probabilities, that her father at once imputes it to 
magic, " to spells and mixtures powerful o'er the blood." 



She, in spite of nature, 
Of years, of country, credit, everything, 
To fall in love with what she feared to look on ! 



156 DESDEMONA. 

And the devilish malignity of Iago, whose coarse mind cannot 
conceive an affection founded purely in sentiment, derives from her 
love itself a strong argument against her. 

Ay, there's the point, as to be bold with you, 
Not to affect many proposed matches 
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree, 
Whereto, we see, in all things nature tends,* &c. 



Notwithstanding this disparity of age, character, country, 
complexion, we, who are admitted into the secret, see her love 
rise naturally and necessarily out of the leading propensities of her 
nature. 

At the period of the story a spirit of wild adventure had 
seized all Europe. The discovery of both Indies was yet recent; 
over the shores of the western hemisphere still fable and mystery 
hung, with all their dim enchantments, visionary terrors, and golden 
promises ! perilous expeditions and distant voyages were every day 
undertaken from hope of plunder, or mere love of enterprise; and 
from these the adventurers returned with tales of " Antres vast and 
desarts wild — of cannibals that did each other eat — of Anthropophagi, 
and men w T hose heads did grow beneath their shoulders. " With 
just such stories did Raleigh and Clifford, and their followers, return 
from the New World; and thus by their splendid or fearful 
exaggerations, which the imperfect knowledge of those times could 
not refute, was the passion for the romantic and marvellous nourished 
at home, particularly among the women. A cavalier of those days 
had no nearer, no surer way to his mistress's heart, than by 
entertaining her with these wondrous narratives. What was a 
general feature of his time, Shakspeare seized and adapted to his 
purpose with the most exquisite felicity of effect. Desdemona, leav- 
ing her household cares in haste, to hang breathless on Othello's tales, 
was doubtless a picture from the life ; and her inexperience and her 
quick imagination lend it an added propriety : then her compassionate 
disposition is interested by all the disastrous chances, hair-breadth 

Act iii., Scene 3 



DESDEMONA. 157 

'scapes, and moving accidents by flood and field, of which he has to 
teli; and her exceeding gentleness and timidity, and her domestic 
turn of mind, render her more easily captivated by the military renown, 
the valor, and lofty bearing of the noble Moor — 

And to his honors and his valiant parts 
Does she her soul and fortunes consecrate. 

The confession and the excuse for her love is well placed in the 
mouth of Desdemona, while the history of the rise of that love, and 
of his course of wooing, is, with the most graceful propriety, as far 
as she is concerned, spoken by Othello, and in her absence. The 
last two lines summing up the whole — 

She loved me for the dangers I had passed, 
And I loved her that she did pity them — 

comprise whole volumes of sentiment and metaphysics. 

Desdemona displays at times a transient energy, arising from the 
power of affection, but gentleness gives the prevailing tone to 
the character — gentleness in its excess — gentleness verging on 
passiveness — gentleness, which not only cannot resent — but cannot 
resist. 

OTHELLO. 

Then of so gentle a condition ! 

IAGO. 

Ay ! too gentle. 

OTHELLO. 

Nay, that's certain. 

Here the exceeding softness of Desdemona's temper is turned 
against her by Iago, so that it suddenly strikes Othello in a new 
point of view, as the inability to resist temptation ; but to us 
who perceive the character as a whole, this extreme gentleness of 



158 DESDEMONA. 

nature is yet delineated with such exceeding refinement, that the 
effect never approaches to feebleness. It is true that once her 
extreme timidity leads her in a moment of confusion and terror 
to prevaricate about the fatal handkerchief. This handkerchief, in 
the original story of Cinthio, is merely one of those embroidered 
handkerchiefs which were as fashionable in Shakspeare's time as in 
our own ; but the minute description of it as " lavorato alia morisco 
sottilissimamente,"* suggested to the poetical fancy of Shakspeare 
one of the most exquisite and characteristic passages in the whole 
play. Othello makes poor Desdemona believe that the handkerchief 
was a talisman. 

There's magic in the web of it. 
A sybil, that had numbered in the world 
The sun to make two hundred compasses, 
In her prophetic fury sevv'd the work: 
The worms were hallow-ed that did breed the silk, 
And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful 
Conserv'd of maidens' hearts. 

DESDEMONA. 

Indeed ! is 't true ? 

OTHELLO. 

Most veritable, therefore look to 't well. 

DESDEMONA. 

Then would to heaven that I had never seen it ! 

OTHELLO. 

Ha ! wherefore ! 

DESDEMONA. 

Why do you speak so startingly and rash J 



• Which being interpreted into modem English, means, I believe, nothing more 
than that the pattern was what we now call arabesque 



DESDEMONA. 159 

OTHELLO. 

Is 't lost, — Is 't gone ? Speak, is it out of the way 

DESDEMONA. 

Heavens bless us ! 

OTHELLO. 

Say you ? 

DESDEMONA. 

It is not lost — but what an' if it were ? 



Ha! 

DESDEMONA. 

I say it is not lost. 

OTHELLO. 

Fetch it, let me see it. 

DESDEMONA. 

Why so I can, sir, but I will not now. &c. 

Desdemona, whose soft credulity, whose turn for the marvellous, 
whose susceptible imagination, had first directed her thoughts and 
affections to Othello, is precisely the woman to be frightened out 
of her senses by such a tale as this, and betrayed by her fears into 
a momentary tergiversation. It is most natural in such a being, and 
shows us that even in the sweetest natures there can be no 
completeness and consistency without moral energy. * 



* There is an incident in the original tale, " II Moro di Venezia," which could 
not well be transferred to the drama, but which is very effective, and adds, I think, 
to the circumstantial horrors of the story. Desdemona does not accidentally drop 
the handkerchief; it is stolen from her by Iago's little child, an infant of three 
years old, whom he trains or bribes to the theft. The love of Desdemona for this 



100 DESDEMONA. 

With the most perfect artlessness, she has something of the 
instinctive, unconscious address of her sex j as when she appeals 
to her father — 



So much duty us my mother show'd 
To yon, preferring you before her father, 
So much I challenge, that I may profess 
Due to the Moor, my lord. 

And when she is pleading for Cassio- 

What ! Michael Cassio ! 
That came a wooing with you ; and many a time, 
When I have spoken of you disparagingly 
Hath ta'en your part. 

In persons, who unite great sensibility and lively fancy, I 
have often observed this particular species of address, which is 
always unconscious of itself, and consists in the power of placing 
ourselves in the position of another, and imagining, rather than 
perceiving, what is in their hearts. We women have this address 
(if so it can be called) naturally, but I have seldom met with 
it in men. It is not inconsistent with extreme simplicity of 
character, and quite distinct from that kind of art which is the 
result of natural acuteness and habits of observation — quick to 
perceive the foibles of others, and as quick to turn them to its 
own purposes ; which is always conscious of itself, and if united 
with strong intellect, seldom perceptible to others. In the mention 
of her mother, and the appeal to Othello's self-love, Desdemona 
has no design formed on conclusions previously drawn ; but her 
intuitive quickness of feeling, added to her imagination, lead her 



child, her little playfellow — the pretty description of her taking it in her arms and 
caressing it, while it profits by its situation to steal the handkerchief from her 
bosom, arc well imagined, and beautifully told; and the circumstance of Iago 
ing his own innocent child as the instrument of his infernal villany, adds a 
deeper, :i:i.l, i.i Irnih, an unnecessary touch of the fiend, to his fiendish character. 



DESDEMONA. 161 

more safely to the same results, and the distinction is as truly 
as it is delicately drawn. 

When Othello first outrages her in a manner which appears 
inexplicable, she seeks and finds excuses for him She is so 
innocent that not only she cannot believe herself suspected, but 
she cannot conceive the existence of guilt in others. 

Something, sure, of state, 
Either from Venice, or some unhatch'd practice 
Made demonstrable hero in Cyprus to him. 
Hath puddled his clear spirit. 

! Tis even so — 
Nay, we must think, men are not gods, 
Nor of them look for such observances 
As fit the bridal. 



And when the direct accusation of crime is flung on her in the 
vilest terms, it does not anger but stun her, as if it transfixed 
her whole being; she attempts no reply, no defence; and reproach 
or resistance never enters her thought. 



Good friend, go to him — for by this light of heaven 
I know not how I lost him: here I kneel :— 
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love, 
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed ; 
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense, 
Delighted them in any other form ; 
Or that I do not yet, and ever did, 
And ever will, though he do shako me off 
To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly, 
Comfort forswear me ! Unkindnoss may do much, 
And his unkindness may defeat my life. 
But never taint my love. 

And there is one stroke of consummate delicacy surprisino-, when 
we remember the latitude of expression prevailing in Shakspeare's 
time, and which he allowed to his other -women generally; she 
says, on recovering from her stupefaction — 

21 



162 DESDEMONA. 

Am I that name, Iago? 

IAGO. 

What name sweet lady ? 

DESDEMONA. 

That, which she says my lord did say I was. 

So completely did Shakspeare enter into the angelic refinement of 
the character. 

Endued with that temper which is the origin of superstition in 
love as in religion, — which, in fact, makes love itself a religion, — 
she not only docs not utter an upbraiding, but nothing that 
Othello does or says, no outrage, no injustice, can tear away the 
charm with which her imagination had invested him, or impair 
her faith in his honor ; " would you had never seen him ! " 
exclaims Emilia. 

DESDEMONA. 

So would not I ! — my love doth so approve him, 
That even his stubbornness, his checks and frowns 
Have grace and favor in them. 

There is another peculiarity, which, in reading the play of 
Othello, we rather feel than perceive : through the w-hole of the 
dialogue appropriated to Desdemona, there is not one general 
observation. Words are with her the vehicle of sentiment, and 
never of reflection ; so that I cannot find throughout a sentence 
of general application. The same remark applies to Miranda: 
and to no other female character of any importance or interest ; 
not even to Ophelia. 

The rest of what I wished to say of Desdemona has been 
anticipated by an anonymous critic, and so beautifully, so justly, 
so eloquently expressed, that I with pleasure erase my own page, 
to make room for his. 

"Othello," observes this writer, "is no love story; all that is 
below tragedy in the passion of love, is taken away at once, by 



DESDEMONA. 163 

the awful character of Othello ; for such he seems to us to be 
designed to be. He appears never as a lover, but at one. 
husband : and the relation of his love made dignified, as it is a 
husband's justification of his marriage, is also dignified, as it is a 
soldier's relation of his stern and perilous life. His love itself, 
as long as it is happy, is perfectly calm and serene — the 
protecting tenderness of a husband. It is not till it is disordered, 
that it appears as a passion : then is shown a power in contention 
with itself — a mighty being struck with death, and bringing up 
from all the depths of life convulsions and agonies. It is no 
exhibition of the power of the passion of love, but of the passion 
of life, vitally wounded, and self over-mastering. If Desdemona 
had been really guilty, the greatness would have been destroyed, 
because his love would have been unworthy, false. But she is 
good, and his love is most perfect, just, and good. Thai a man 
should place his perfect love on a wretched thing, is' miserably 
debasing, and shocking to thought; but that loving perfectly 
and well, he should by hellish human circumvention be brought to 
distrust and dread, and abjure his own perfect love, is most 
mournful indeed — it is the infirmity of our good nature wrestling 
in vain with the strong powers of evil. Moreover, he would, had 
Desdemona been false, have been the mere victim of fate ; 
whereas he is now in a manner bis own victim. His happy love 
was heroic tenderness; his injured love is terrible passion; and 
disordered power, engendered within itself to its own destruction, 
is the height of all ti;; 

" The character of Othello is perhaps the most greatly drawn, 
the most heroic of any of Shakspeare's actors ; but it is, perhaps, 
that one also of which his reader last acquires the intelligence. 
The intellectual and warlike energy of his mind — his tenderness of 
affection — his loftiness of spirit — his frank, generous magnanimity — 
impetuosity like a thunderbolt — and that dark, fierce flood of boiling 
passion, polluting even his imagination, — compose a character entirely 
original, most difficult to delineate, but perfectly delineated." 

Emilia in this play is a perfect portrait from common life, a 
masterpiece in the Flemish style : and though not necessary as a 
contrast, it cannot be but that the thorough vulgarity, the loose 



164 DESDEMONA. 

principles of this plebeian woman, united to a high degree of spirit, 
energetic feeling, strong sense and low cunning, serve to place in 
brighter relief the exquisite refinement, the moral grace, the 
unblemished truth, and the soft submission of Desdemona. 

On the other perfections of this tragedy, considered as a production 
of genius — on the wonderful characters of Othello and Iago — on the 
skill with which the plot is conducted, and its simplicity which a 
word unravels,* and on the overpowering horror of the catastrophe — 
eloquence and analytical criticism have been exhausted; I will only 
add, that the source of the pathos throughout — of that pathos which 
at once softens and deepens the tragic effect — lies in the character 
of Desdemona. No woman differently constituted could have excited 
the same intense and painful compassion, without losing something 
of that exalted charm, which invests her from beginning to end, 
which we are apt to impute to the interest of the situation, and to 
the poetical coloring, but which lies, in fact, in the very essence of 
the character. Desdemona, with all her timid flexibility and soft 
acquiescence, is not weak; for the negative alone is weak; and the 
mere presence of goodness and affection implies in itself a species 
of power ; power without consciousness, power without effort, power 
with repose — that soul of grace ! 

I knew a Desdemona in real life, one in whom the absence of 
intellectual power is never felt as a deficiency, nor the absence of 
energy of will as impairing the dignity, nor the most imperturbable 
serenity, as a want of feeling : one in whom thoughts appear mere 
instincts, the sentiment of rectitude supplies the principle, and virtue 
itself seems rather a necessary state of being, than an imposed law 
No shade of sin or vanity has yet stolen over that bright innocence. 
No discord within has marred the loveliness without — no strife of 
the factitious world without has disturbed the harmony within. The 
comprehension of evil appears for ever shut out, as if goodness had 



* Consequences are so linked together, that the exclamation of Emilia, 

thou dull Moor ! — That handkerchief thou speakest of 

1 found by fortune, and did give my husband ! 

is sufficient to reveal to Othello the whole historv of his ruin. 



DESDEMONA. 165 

converted all things to itself; and all to the pure in heart must 
necessarily be pure. The impression produced is exactly that of the 
character of Desdemona ; genius is a rare thing, but abstract goodness 
is rarer. In Desdemona we cannot but feel that the slightest 
manifestation of intellectual power or active will would have injured 
the dramatic effect. She is a victim consecrated from the first, — 
" an offering without blemish," alone worthy of the grand final 
sacrifice ; all harmony, all grace, all purity, all tenderness, all truth ! 
But, alas ! to see her fluttering like a cherub, in the talons of a 
fiend ! — to see her — poor Desdemona ' 



IMOGEN. 



VVfi now come to Imogen. Others of Shakspeare's characters are, 
aj dramatic and poetical conceptions, more striking, more brilliant, 
more powerful ; but of all his women, considered as individuals rather 
than as heroines, Imogen is the most perfect. Portia and Juliet are 
pictured to the fancy with more force of contrast, more depth of 
light and shade ; Viola and Miranda, with more aerial delicacy of 
outline ; but there is no female portrait that can be compared to 
Imogen as a woman — none in which so great a variety of tints are 
mingled together into such a perfect harmony. In her we have all 
the fervor of youthful tenderness, all the romance of youthful fancy, 
all the enchantment of ideal grace, — the bloom of beauty, the brightness 
of intellect, and the dignity of rank, taking a peculiar hue from the 
conjugal character which is shed over all, like a consecration and a 
holy charm. In Othello and the Winter's Tale, the interest excited 
for Desdemona and Hermione is divided with others : but in Cymbeline, 
Imogen is the angel of light, whose lovely presence pervades and 
animates the whole piece. The character altogether may be pronounced 
finer, more complex in its elements, and more fully developed in all 
its parts, than those of Hermione and Desdemona ; but the position 
in which she is placed is not, I think, so fine — at least, not so 
effective, as a tragic situation. 

Shakspeare has borrowed the chief circumstances of Imogen's story 
from one of Boccaccio's tales.* 

A company of Italian merchants who are assembled in a tavern at 
Paris, are represented as conversing on the subject of their wives : 

* Decamerone. Novella, 9™°- Giornata, 2 j0 



168 IMOGEN. 

all of them express themselves with levity, or scepticism, or scorn 
on the virtue of women, except a young Genoese merchant named 
Bemabo, who maintains, that by the especial favor of Heaven he 
possesses a wife no less chaste than beautiful. Heated by the wine, 
and excited by the arguments and the coarse raillery of another 
young merchant, Ambrogiolo, Bernabo proceeds to enumerate the 
various perfections and accomplishments of his Zinevra. He praises 
her loveliness, her submission and her discretion — her skill in 
embroidery, her graceful service, in which the best trained page of 
the court could not exceed her; and he adds, as rarer accomplishments, 
that she could mount a horse, fly a hawk, write and read, and cast 
up accounts, as well as any merchant of them all. His enthusiasm 
only excites the laughter and mockery of his companions, particularly 
of Ambrogiolo, who, by the most artful mixture of contradiction 
and argument, rouses the anger of Bernabo, and he at length 
exclaims, that he would willingly stake his life, his head, on the 
virtue of his wife. This leads to the wager which forms so important 
an incident in the drama. Ambrogiolo bets one thousand florins of 
gold against five thousand, that Zinevra, like the rest of her sex, is 
accessible to temptation — that in less than three months he will 
undermine her virtue, and bring her husband the most undeniable 
proofs of her falsehood. He sets off for Genoa, in order to accomplish 
his purpose; but on his arrival, all that he learns, and all that he 
beholds with his own eyes, of the discreet and noble character of 
the lady, make him despair of success by fair means ; he therefore 
has recourse to the basest treachery. By bribing an old woman in 
the service of Zinevra, he is conveyed to her sleeping apartment, 
concealed in a trunk, from which he issues in the dead of the night ; 
takes note of the furniture of the chamber, makes himself master 
of her purse, her morning robe, or cymar, and her girdle, and of a 
certain mark on her person. He repeats these observations for two 
nights, and, furnished with these evidences of Zinevra's guilt, he 
returns to Paris, and lays them before the wretched husband. 
Bernabo rejects every proof of his wife's infidelity, except that which 
finally convinces Posthumus. When Ambrogiolo mentions the " moie, 
cinque-spotted," he stands like one who has received a poniard in 
his heart ; without further dispute he pays down the forfeit, and filled 






IMOGEN. 169 

with rage and despair both at the loss of his money and the falsehood of 

his wife, he returns towards Genoa ; he retires to his country house, 

and sends a messenger to the city with letters to Zinevra, desiring 

that she would come and meet him, but with secret orders to the 

man to dispatch her by the way. The servant prepares to execute 

his master's command, but overcome by her entreaties for mercy, and 

his own remorse, he spares her life, on condition that she will fly 

from the country for ever. He then disguises her in his own cloak 

and cap, and brings back to her husband the assurance that she is 

killed, and that her body has been devoured by the wolves. In the 

disguise of a mariner, Zinevra then embarks on board a vessel bound 

to l lie Levant, and on arriving at Alexandria, she is taken into the 

service of the Sultan of Egypt, under the name of Sicurano ; she 

gains the confidence of her master, who, not suspecting her sex, 

sends her as captain of the guard which was appointed for the 

protection of the merchants at the fair of Acre. Here she accident ally 

meets Ambrogiolo, and sees in his possession the purse and girdle, 

which she immediately recognizes as her own. In reply to her 

inquiries, he relates with fiendish exultation the manner in which he 

had obtained possession of them, and she persuades him to go back 

with her to Alexandria. She then sends a messenger to Genoa in the 

name of the Sultan, and induces her husband to come and settle in 

Alexandria. At a proper opportunity, she summons both to the presence 

of the Sultan, obliges Ambrogiolo to make a full confession of his 

treachery, and wrings from her husband the avowal of his supposed 

murder of herself; then falling at the feet of the Sultan discovers her 

real name and sex, to the great amazement of all. Bernabo is 

pardoned at the prayer of his wife, and Ambrogiolo is condemned 

to be fastened to a stake, smeared with honey, and left to be devoured 

by the flies and locusts. This horrible sentence is executed ; while 

Zinevra, enriched by the presents of the Sultan, and the forfeit 

wealth of Ambrogiolo, returns with her husband to Genoa, where 

she lives in great honor and happiness, and maintains her reputation 

for virtue to the end of her life. 

These are the materials from which Shakspeare has drawn the 

dramatic situation of Imogen. He has also endowed her with several 

of the qualities which are attributed to Zinevra ; but for the essential 
22 



170 IMOGEN. 

truth and beauty of the individual character, for the sweet coloring 
of pathos, and sentiment, and poetry interfused through the whole, 
he is indebted only to nature and himself. 

It would be a waste of words to refute certain critics who have 
accused Shakspeare of a want of judgment in the adoption of the 
story ; of having transferred the manners of a set of intoxicated 
merchants and a merchant's wife to heroes and princesses, and of 
having entirely destroyed the interest of the catastrophe* The truth 
is, that Shakspeare has wrought out the materials before him with 
the most luxuriant fancy and the most wonderful skill. As for the 
various anachronisms, and the confusion of names, dates, and manners, 
over which Dr. Johnson exults in no measured terms, the confusion 
is nowhere but in his own heavy obtuseness of sentiment and perception, 
and his want of poetical faith. Look into the old Italian poets, whom 
we read continually with still increasing pleasure ; does any one 
think of sitting down to disprove the existence of Ariodante, king 
of Scotland 1 or to prove that the mention of Proteus and Pluto, 
baptism and the Virgin Mary, in a breath, amounts to an anachronism ? 
Shakspeare, by throwing his story far back into a remote and uncertain 
age, has blended, by his " own omnipotent will," the marvellous, the 
heroic, the ideal, and the classical, — the extreme of refinement and 
the extreme of simplicity, — into one of the loveliest fictions of romantic 
poetry ; and, to use Schlegel's expression, " has made the social manners 
of the latest times harmonize with heroic deeds, and even with the 
appearances of the gods."f 

But, admirable as is the conduct of the whole play, rich in variety 
of character and in picturesque incident, its chief beauty and interest 
is derived from Imogen. 

When Ferdinand tells Miranda that she was " created of every 
creature's best," he speaks like a lover, or refers only to her personal 
charms : the same expression might be applied critically to the 
character of Imogen ; for, as the portrait of Miranda is produced by 
resolving the female character into its original elements, so that 



* Vide Dr. Johnson, and Dunlop's History of Fiction. 

t See Hazlitt and Schlegel on the catastrophe of Cymbeline. 



IMOGEN. 171 

of Imogen unites the greatest number of those qualities which we 
imagine to constitute excellence in woman. 

Imogen, like Juliet, conveys to our mind the impression of extreme 
simplicity in the midst of the most wonderful complexity. To 
conceive her aright, we must take some peculiar tint from many 
characters, and so mingle them, that, like the combination of hues in 
a sunbeam, the effect shall be as one to the eye. We must imagine 
something of the romantic enthusiasm of Juliet, of the truth and 
constancy of Helen, of the dignified purity of Isabel, of the tender 
sweetness of Viola, of the self-possession and intellect of Portia — 
combined together so equally and so harmoniously, that we can scarcely 
say that one quality predominates over the other. But Imogen is less 
imaginative than Juliet, less spirited and intellectual than Portia, 
less serious than Helen and Isabel ; her dignity is not so imposing 
as that of Hermione, it stands more on the defensive ; her submission, 
though unbounded, is not so passive as that of Desdemona ; and thus, 
while she resembles each of these characters individually, she stands 
wholly distinct from all. 

It is true, that the conjugal tenderness of Imogen is at once the 
chief subject of the drama, and the pervading charm of her character ; 
but it is not true, I think, that she is merely interesting from her 
tenderness and constancy to her husband. We are so completely let 
into the essence of Imogen's nature, that we feel as if we had known 
and loved her before she was married to Posthunms, and (hat her 
conjugal virtues are a charm superadded, like the color laid upon a 
beautiful groundwork. Neither does it appear to me, that Posthumus 
is unworthy of Imogen, or only interesting on Imogen's account. 
His character, like those of all the other persons of the drama, is 
kept subordinate to hers : but this could not be otherwise, for she 
is the proper subject — the heroine of the poem. Everything is 
done to ennoble Posthumus, and justify her love for him ; and though 
we certainly approve him more for her sake than for his own, we 
are early prepared to view him with Imogen's eyes ; and not only 
excuse, but sympathize in her admiration of one 

Who sat 'mongst men like a descended god. 



ltd IMOGEN. 

Who lived in court, which it is rare to do, 
Most praised, most loved : 
A sample to the youngest ; to the more mature, 
A glass that feated them. 

And with what beauty and delicacy is her conjugal and matronly 
character discriminated ! Her love for her husband is as deep as 
Juliet's for her lover, but without any of that headlong vehemence, 
that fluttering amid hope, fear and transport — that giddy intoxication 
of heart and sense, which belongs to the novelty of passion, which 
we feel once, and but once, in our lives. We see her love for 
Posthumus acting upon her mind with the force of an habitual 
feeling, heightened by enthusiastic passion, and hallowed by the sense 
of duty. She asserts and justifies her affection with energy indeed, 
but with a calm and wife-like dignity: — 



Thou took'st a beggar, would'st have made my throne 
A seat for baseness. 

IMOGEN. 

No, I rather added a lustre to it. 

CYMBELINE. 

O thou vile one ! 



Sir, 
It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus ; 
You bred him as my playfellow, and he is 
A man worth any woman ; overbuys me, 
Almost the sum he pays. 

Compare also, as examples of the most delicate discrimination of 
character and feeling, the parting scene between Imogen and Posthumus, 
that between Romeo and Juliet, and that between Troilus and Cressida : 
compare the confiding matronly tenderness, the deep but resigned 
sorrow of Imogen, with the despairing agony of Juliet, and the 
petulant grief of Cressida. 



IMOGEN. 173 

When Posthumus is driven into exile, he comes to take a last 
farewell of his wife : — 



My dearest husband, 
I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing 
(Always reserved my holy duty) what 
His rage can do on me. You must be gone, 
And I shall here abide the hourly shot 
Of angry eyes : not comforted to live, 
But that there is this jewel in the world 
That I may see again. 



My queen ! my mistress ! 
O lady, weep no more ! lest I give cause 
To be suspected of more tenderness 
Than doth become a man. I will remain 
The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth 



Should we be taking leave 
As long a term as yet we have to live, 
The loathness to depart would grow — Adieu ! 



Nay, stay a little : 

Were you but riding forth to air yourself, 
Such parting were too petty. Look here, love, 
This diamond was my mother's ; take it, heart ; 
But keep it till you woo another wife, 
When Imogen is dead ! 

Imogen, in whose tenderness there is nothing jealous or fantastic, 
does not seriously apprehend that her husband will woo another wife, 
when she is dead. It is one of those fond fancies which women are 
apt to express in moments of feeling, merely for the pleasure of 
hearing a protestation to the contrary. When Posthumus leaves her, 
she does not burst forth in eloquent lamentation ; but that silent. 



174 IMOGEN. 

stunning, overwhelming sorrow, which renders the mind insensible to 
all things else, is represented with equal force and simplicity. 



There cannot be a pinch in death 
More sharp than this is. 

CTMBELrNE. 

O disloyal thing, 
That should'st repair my youth ; thou heapest 
A year's age on me ! 



I beseech you, sir, 
Harm not yourself with your vexation ; I 
Am senseless of your wrath ; a touch more rare* 
Subdues all pangs, all fears. 

CTMBELINE. 

Past grace ? obedience ? 

IMOGEN. 

Past hope, and in despair — that way past grace. 

In the same circumstances, the impetuous excited feelings of Juliet, 
and her vivid imagination, lend something far more wildly agitated, 
more intensely poetical and passionate to her grief. 



Art thou gone so ? My love, my lord, my friend 
I must hear from thee every day i' the hour, 
For in a minute there are many days — 
O by this count I shall be much in years, 
Ere I again behold my Romeo ! 



' More rare — i. e. more exquisitely poignant. 



IMOGEN. 175 



Farewell ! I will omit no opportunity 

That may convey my greetings, love, to thee. 

JULIET. 

O ! think'st thou we shall ever meet again ? 



I doubt it not ; and all these woes shall serve 
For sweet discourses in our time to come. 



O God ! I have an ill-divining soul : 
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, 
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb : 
Either my eye-sight fails, or thou look'st pale. 

We have no sympathy with the pouting disappointment of Cressida, 
which is just like that of a spoilt child which has lost its sugar-plum, 
without tenderness, passion, or poetry : and, in short, perfectly 
characteristic of that vain, fickle, dissolute, heartless woman, — " unstable 
as water." 

CHESSEDA. 

And is it true that I must go from Troy 1 

TKOILUS. 

A hateful truth. 

CRESSEDA. 

What, and from Troilus too ? 

TROJXTJS. 

From Troy and Troilus. 

CRESSJDA. 

Is it possible ? 



176 IMOGEN. 

TKOIIXS. 

And suddenly. 

CKESSIDA. 

I must then to the Greeks ? 

TEOILUS. 

No remedy. 



A woeful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks 
When shall we see again ? 



TEOILUS. 

Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart 

CRESS1DA. 

I true ! How now ? what wicked deem is this ? 



Nay, we must use expostulation kindly, 
For it is parting from us ; 
I speak not, be thou true, as fearing thee ; 
For I will throw my glove to Death himself, 
That there's no maculation in thy heart: 
But be thou true, say I, to fashion in 
My sequent protestation. Be thou true, 
And I will see thee. 



O heavens ! be true again- 
O heavens ! you love me not. 



Die I a villain, then ! 
In this I do not call your faith in questiou, 
So mainly as my merit — 

But be not tempted. 



IMOGEN. 177 

CEESSIDA. 

Do you think I will ? 



In the eagerness of Imogen to meet her husband there is all a 
wife's fondness, mixed up with the breathless hurry arising from a sudden 
and joyful surprise ; but nothing of the picturesque eloquence, the ardent, 
exuberant, Italian imagination of Juliet, who, to gratify her impatience, 
would have her heralds thoughts ; — press into her service the nimble- 
pinioned cloves, and wind-swift Cupids, — change the course of nature, 
and lash the steeds of Phoebus to the west. Imogen only thinks 
" one score of miles, 'twixt sun and sun," slow travelling for a lover, 
and wishes for a horse with wings — 

O for a horse with wings ! Hear'st thou, Pisanio ? 

He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me 

How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs 

May plod it in a week, why may not I 

Glide thither in a day ? Then, true Pisanio 

(Who long'st like me, to see thy lord — who long'st — 

O let me bate, but not like me — yet long'st, 

But in a fainter kind — O not like me, 

For mine's beyond beyond), say, and speak thick — 

(Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing 

To the smothering of the sense) — how far is it 

To this same blessed Milford ? And by the way, 

Tell me how Wales was made so happy, as 

To inherit such a haven. But, first of all, 

How we may steal from hence ; and for the gap 

That we shall make in time, from our hence going 

And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence ? 

Why should excuse be born, or e'er begot ? 

We'll talk of that hereafter. Pr'ythee speak, 

How many score of miles may we well ride 

'Twixt hour and hour 1 



One score, 'twixt sun and sun, 
Madam, 'a enough for you ; and too much too. 
2:5 ' 



178 IMOGEN. 



Why, one that rode to his execution, man, 
Could never go so slow ! 

There are two or three other passages bearing on the conjugal 
tenderness of Imogen, which must be noticed for the extreme intensity 
of the feeling, and the unadorned elegance of the expression. 

I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven 
And question'dst every sail : if he should write, 
And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost 
As offer d mercy is. What was the last 
That he spake to thee ? 

fisanio. 
'Twas, His queen ! his queen .' 

IMOGEN. 

Then wav'd his handkerchief ? 

PISANIO. 

And kissed it, madam. 



Senseless linen ! happier therein than I ! — 
And that was all ? 



No, madam ; for so long 
As he could make me with this eye or ear 
Distinguish him from others, he did keep 
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief 
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of his mind 
Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on 
How swift his ship. 

IMOGEN. 

Thou should'st have made him 
As little as a crow, or less, ere left 
To after-eye him. 



IMOGEN. 170 

PISANIO. 

Madam, so I did. 



I would have broke my eye-strings ; cracked them, but 

To look upon him ; till the diminution 

Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle ; 

Nay, followed him, till he had melted from 

The smallness of a gnat to air ; and then 

Have turn'd mine eye, and wept. 

Two little incidents, which are introduced with the most unobtrusive 
simplicity, convey the strongest impression of her tenderness for her 
husband, and with that perfect unconsciousness on her part, which 
adds to the effect. Thus, when she has lost her bracelet — 

Go, bid my woman 
Search for a jewel, that too casually, 
Hath left my arm. It was thy master's : 'shrew me, 
If I would lose it for a revenue 
Of any king in Europe. I do think 
I saw 't this morning ; confident I am 
Last night 't was on mine arm — I hiss'd it. 
I hope it has not gone to tell my lord 
That I kiss aught hut he. 

It has been well observed, that our consciousness that the bracelet 
is really gone to bear false witness against her, adds an inexpressible 
touching effect to the simplicity and tenderness of the sentiment. 

And again, when she opens her bosom to meet the death to 
which her husband has doomed her, she finds his letters preserved 
next her heart. 

What's here ! 
The letters of the loyal Leonatus ? — 
Soft, we'll no defence. 

The scene in which Posthumus stakes his ring on the virtue of 
his wife, and gives Iachimo permission to tempt her, is taken from 



180 IMOGEN. 

the story. The baseness and folly of such conduct have been justly 
censured ; but Shakspeare, feeling that Posthuinus needed every excuse, 
has managed the quarrelling scene between him and Iachimo with 
the most admirable skill. The manner in which his high spirit is 
gradually worked up by the taunts of this Italian fiend, is contrived 
with far more probability, and much less coarseness, than in the 
original tale. In the end he is not the challenger, but the challenged ; 
and could hardly (except on a moral principle, much too refined for 
those rude times) have declined the wager without compromising his 
own courage, and his faith in the honor of Imogen. 

IACHIMO. 

I durst attempt it against any lady in the world. 

FOSTHUMUS. 

You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion ; and I doubt not you sustain 
what you're worthy of, by your attempt. 

IACHIMO. 

What's that ? 

FOSTHUMUS. 

A repulse : though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more — a punishment too. 



Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too suddenly ; let it die as it was born, 
and I pray you be better acquainted. 



Would I had put my estate and my neighbor's on the approbation of what I have 
aid! 

FOSTHUMUS. 

What lady would you choose to assail ? 

IACHIMO. 

Yours, whom in constancy you think stands so safe. 



IMOGEN. 181 

In the interview between Imogen and Iachimo, he does not begin 
his attack on her virtue by a direct accusation against Posthumus , 
but by dark hints and half-uttered insinuations, such as Iago uses 
to madden Othello, he intimates that her husband, in his absence 
from her, has betrayed her love and truth, and forgotten her in the 
arms of another. All that Imogen says in this scene is comprised 
in a few lines — a brief question, or a more brief remark. The 
proud and delicate reserve with which she veils the anguish she 
suffers, is inimitably beautiful. The strongest expression of reproach 
he can draw from her, is only, " My lord, I fear, has forgot Britain." 
When he continues in the same strain, she exclaims in an agony, 
" Let me hear no more." When he urges her to revenge, she asks, 
with all the simplicity of virtue, " How should I be revenged 1" 
And when he explains to her how she is to be avenged, her sudden 
burst of indignation, and her immediate perception of his treachery, 
and the motive for it, are powerfully fine : it is not only the anger 
of a woman whose delicacy has been shocked, but the spirit of a 
princess insulted in her court. 

Away ! I do condemn mine ears, that have 
So long attended thee. If thou wert honorable, 
Thou would'st have told this tale for virtue, not 
For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange. 
Thou wrong'st a gentleman, who is as far 
From thy report as thou from honor ; and 
Solicit'st here a lady that disdains 
Thee and the devil alike. 

It has been remarked, that " her readiness to pardon Iachimo's 
false imputation, and his designs against herself, is a good lesson 
to prudes, and may show that where there is a real attachment to 
virtue, there is no need of an outrageous antipathy to vice." * 

This is true; but can we fail to perceive that the instant and 
ready forgiveness of Imogen is accounted for, and rendered more 
graceful and characteristic by the very means which Iachimo employs 
to win it 1 He pours forth the most enthusiastic praises of her 

* Characters of ShaUspeare's Plays. 



182 IMOGEN. 

husband, professes that he merely made this trial of her out of his 
exceeding love for Posthumus, and she is pacified at once ; but, with 
exceeding delicacy of feeling, she is represented as maintaining her 
dignified reserve and her brevity of speech to the end of the scene.* 
We must also observe how beautifully the character of Imogen is 
distinguished from those of Desdemona and Hermione. When she is 
made acquainted with her husband's cruel suspicions, we see in her 
deportment neither the meek submission of the former, nor the calm 
resolute dignity of the latter. The first effect produced on her by her 
husband's letter is conveyed to the fancy by the explanation of Pisanio, 
who is gazing on her as she reads : — 

What shall I need to draw my sword ? The paper 
Has cut her throat already ! No, 'tis slander, 
Whose edge is sharper than the sword ! 

And in her first exclamation we trace, besides astonishment and 
anguish, and the acute sense of the injustice inflicted on her, a flash 
of indignant spirit, which we do not find in Desdemona or Hermione. 

False to his bed ! — What is it to be false ? 

To lie in watch there, and to think of him ? 

To weep 'twixt clock and clock ? If sleep charge nature. 

To break it with a fearful dream of him, 

And cry myself awake ? — that's false to his bed, 

Is it? 

This is followed by that affecting lamentation over the falsehood 
and injustice of her husband, in which she betrays no atom of jealousy 
or wounded self-love, but observes in the extremity of her anguish, 
that after his lapse from truth, " all good seeming would be 
discredited," and she then resigns herself to his will with the most 
entire submission. 

In the original story, Zinevra prevails on the servant to spare her, 
by her exclamations and entreaties for mercy "The lady, seeing the 
poniard, and hearing those words, exclaimed in terror, ' Alas ! have 

* Vide act i. scene 7 



IMOGEN. 183 

pity on me for the love of heaven ! do not become the slayer of one 
who never offended thee, only to pleasure another. God, who knows 
all things, knows that I have never done that which could merit 
such a reward from my husband's hand.' " 

Now let us turn to Shakspeare. Imogen says, — 

Come, fellow, be thou honest ; 
Do thou thy master's bidding : when thou seest him, 
A little witness my obedience. Look ! 
I draw the sword myself; take it, and hit 
The innocent mansion of my love, my heart. 
Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief: 
Thy master is not there, who was, indeed, 
The riches of it. Do his bidding ; strike ! 

The devoted attachment of Pisanio to his royal mistress, all through 
the piece, is one of those side touches by which Shakspeare knew 
how to give additional effect to his characters. 

Cloten is odious ;* but we must not overlook the peculiar fitness and 
propriety of his character, in connexion with that of Imogen. He is 
precisely the kind of man who would be most intolerable to such a woman. 
He is a fool, — so is Slender, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek : but the folly 
of Cloten is not only ridiculous, but hateful ; it arises not so much 
from a want of understanding as a total want of heart; it is the 
perversion of sentiment, rather than the deficiency of intellect : he has 
occasional gleams of sense, but never a touch of feeling. Imogen 
describes herself not only as " sprighted with a fool," but as " frighted 
and anger'd worse." No other fool but Cloten — a compound of 

* The character of Cloten has been pronounced by some unnatural, by others 
inconsistent, and by others obsolete. The following pas5age occurs in one of 
Miss Seward's letters, vol. iii., p. 246 : — " It is curious that Shakspeare should, in so 
singular a character as Cloten, have given the exact prototype of a being whom I 
once knew. The unmeaning frown of countenance, the shuffling gait, the burst of 
voice, the bustling insignificance, the fever and ague fits of valor, the froward 
tetchiness, the unprincipled malice, and, what is more curious, those occasional gleams 
of good sense amidst the floating clouds of folly which generally darkened and 
confused the man's biain, and which, in the character of Cloten, we are apt to 

impute to a violation of unity in character ; but in the some-time Captain C . I 

saw that the portrait of Cloten was not nut of n it 



184 IMOGEN. 

the booby and the villain — could excite in such a mind as Imogen's 
the same mixture of terror, contempt, and abhorrence. The stupid 
obstinate malignity of Cloten, and the wicked machinations of the 
queen — 

A father cruel, and a step-dame false, 
A foolish suitor to a wedded lady — 

justify whatever might need excuse in the conduct of Imogen — as her 
concealed marriage and her flight from her father's court — and serve 
to call out several of the most beautiful and striking parts of her 
character : particularly that decision and vivacity of temper, which 
in her harmonize so beautifully with exceeding delicacy, sweetness, 
and submission. 

In the scene with her detested suitor, there is at first a careless 
majesty of disdain, which is admirable. 

I am much sorry, sir, 
You put me to forget a lady's manners, 
By being so verbal ;* and learn now, for all, 
That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce, 
By the very truth of it, I care not for you, 
And am so near the lack of charity 
(T" accuse myself), I hate you ; which I had rather 
You felt, than make 't my boast. 

But when he dares to provoke her, by reviling the absent Posthumus, 
her indignation heightens her scorn, and her scorn sets a keener 
edge on her indignation. 



For the contract you pretend with that base wretch, 
One bred of alms, and fostered with cold dishes, 
With scraps o' the court ; it is no contract, none. 



Profane fellow ! 
Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more, 

• i e. full of words. 



IMOGEN. 185 

But what thou art, besides, thou wert too base 
To be his groom ; thou wert dignified enough, 
Even to the point of envy, if 't were made 
Comparative for your virtues, to be styl'd 
The under hangman of his kingdom ; and hated 
For being preferr'd so well. 

He never can meet more mischance than come 
To be but nam'd of thee. His meanest garment 
That pver hath but chpp'd his body, is dearer 
In my respect, than all the hairs above thee, 
Were they all made such men. 

One thing more must be particularly remarked, because it serves 
to individualize the character, from the beginning to the end of the 
poem. We are constantly sensible that Imogen, besides being a 
tender and devoted woman, is a princess and a beauty, at the same 
time that she is ever superior to her position and her external charms. 
There is, for instance, a certain airy majesty of deportment — a spirit 
of accustomed command breaking out every now and then — the dignity, 
without the assumption of rank and royal birth, which is apparent 
in the scene with Cloten and elsewhere ; and we have not only a 
general impression that Imogen, like other heroines, is beautiful, but 
the peculiar style and character of her beauty is placed before us : 
we have an image of the most luxuriant loveliness, combined with 
exceeding delicacy, and even fragility of person : of the most refined 
elegance, and the most exquisite modesty, set forth in one or two ' 
passages of description ; as when Iachimo is contemplating her 
asleep : — 

Cytherea, 
How bravely thou becom'st thy bed ! fresh lily, 
And whiter than the sheets. 

'Tis her breathing that 

Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper 

Bows toward her ; and would underpeep her lids 

To see the enclos'd lights, now canopied 

Under those windows, white and azure, lac'd 

With blue of heaven's own tinct ! 
24 



186 IMOGEN. 

The preservation of her feminine character under her masculine 
attire ; her delicacy, her modesty, and her timidity, are managed 
with the same perfect consistency and unconscious grace as in Viola. 
And we must not forget that her " neat cookery," which is so prettily 
eulogised by Guiderius : — 

He cuts out roots in characters, 

And sauc'd our broths, as Juno had been sick, 

And he her dieter, 

formed part of the education of a princess in those remote times. 

Few reflections of a general nature are put into the mouth of 
Imogen ; and what she says is more remarkable for sense, truth, and 
tender feeling, than for wit, or wisdom, or power of imagination. 
The following little touch of poetry reminds us of Juliet: — 

Ere I could 
Give him that parting kiss, which I had set 
Between two charming words, comes in my father ; 
And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north 
Shakes all our buds from growing. 

Her exclamation on opening her husband's letter, reminds us of 
the profound and thoughtful tenderness of Helen : — 

O learned indeed were that astronomer 
That knew the stars, as I his characters ! 
He'd lay the future open. 

The following are more in the manner of Isabel :— 

Most miserable 
Is the desire that's glorious : bless'd be those, 
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills, 
That seasons comfort. 

Against self-slaughter 
There is a prohibition so divine 
That cravens my weak hand. 



IMOGEN. 18? 

Thus may poor fools 

Believe false teachers ; though those that are betray'd 

Do feel the reason sharply, yet the traitor 

Stands in worse case of woe, 

Are we not brothers ? 

So man and man should be ; 
But clay and clay differs in dignity, 
Whose dust is both alike. 

Will poor folks lie 
That have afflictions on them, knowing 'tis 
A punishment or trial ? Yes : no wonder, 
When rich ones scarce tell true : to lapse in fullnes3 
Is sorer than to lie for need ; and falsehood 
Is worse in kings than beggars. 

The sentence which follows, and which I believe has become 
proverbial, has much of the manner of Portia, both in the thought 
and the expression : — 

Hath Britain all the sun that shines ? Day, night, 
Are they not but in Britain ? I' the world's volume 
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it ; 
In a great pool, a swan's nest ; pr'ythee, think 
There's livers out of Britain. 



The catastrophe of this play has been much admired for the 
peculiar skill with which all the various threads of interest are 
gathered together at last, and entwined with the destiny of Imogen. 
It may be added, that one of the chief beauties is the manner in 
which the character of Imogen is not only preserved, but rises upon 
us to the conclusion with added grace : her instantaneous forgiveness 
of her husband before he even asks it, when she flings herself at 
once into his arms — 

Why did you throw your wedded lady from you ? 

and her magnanimous reply to her father, when he tells her, that by 
the discoveiy of her two brothers she has lost a kingdom — 



188 IMOGEN. 

No— I have gain'd two worlds by it — 

clothing a noble sentiment in a noble image, give the finishing 
touches of excellence to this most enchanting portrait. 

On the whole, Imogen is a lovely compound of goodness, truth, 
and affection, with just so much of passion and intellect and poetry, 
as serve to lend to the picture that power and glowing richness of 
effect which it would otherwise have wanted ; and of her it might 
be said, if we could condescend to quote from any other poet with 
Shakspeare open before us, that " her person was a paradise, and her 
soul the cherub to guard it."* 

* Dryden. 



CORDELIA. 



There is in the beauty of Cordelia's character an effect too sacred 
for words, and almost too deep for tears ; within her heart is a 
fathomless well of purest affection, but its waters sleep in silence 
and obscurity, — never failing in their depth, and never overflowing 
in their fulness. Everything in her seems to lie beyond our view, 
and affects us in a manner which we feel rather than perceive. 
The character appears to have no surface, no salient points upon 
which the fancy can readily seize; there is little external 
development of intellect, less of passion, and still less of imagination. 
It is completely made out in the course of a few scenes, and we 
are surprised to find that in those few scenes there is matter for 
a life of reflection, and materials enough for twenty heroines. If 
Lear be the grandest of Shakspeare's tragedies, Cordelia in herself, 
as a human being, governed by the purest and holiest impulses 
and motives, the most refined from all dross of selfishness and 
passion, approaches near to perfection ; and in her adaptation, as 
a dramatic personage, to a determinate plan of action, may be 
pronounced altogether perfect. The character, to speak of it 
critically as a poetical conception, is not, however, to be 
comprehended at once, or easily; and in the same manner Cordelia, 
as a woman, is one whom we must have loved before we could 
have known her, and known her long before we could have known 
her truly. 

Most people, I believe, have heard the story of the young 
German artist Muller, who, while employed in copying and 
engraving Raffaelle's Madonna del Sisto, was so penetrated by its 



190 CORDELIA. 

celestial beauty, so distrusted his own power to do justice to it, 
that between admiration and despair he fell into a sadness ; 
thence through the usual gradations, into a melancholy, thence into 
madness; and died just as he had put the finishing stroke to his 
own matchless work, which had occupied him for eight years. 
With some slight tinge of this concentrated kind of enthusiasm I 
have learned to contemplate the character of Cordelia ; I have 
looked into it till the revelation of its hidden beauty, and an 
intense feeling of the wonderful genius which created it, have filled 
me at once wi(h delight and despair. Like poor Miiller, but with 
more reason, I do despair of ever conveying, through a different 
and inferior medium, the impression made on my own mind, to 
the mind of another. 

Schlegel, the most eloquent of critics, concludes his remarks on 
King Lear with these words : " Of the heavenly beauty of soul 
of Cordelia, I will not venture to speak." Now if I attempt 
what Schlegel and others have left undone, it is because I feel 
that this general acknowledgment of her excellence can neither 
satisfy those who have studied the character, nor convey a just 
conception of it to the mere reader. Amid the awful, the 
overpowering interest of the story, amid the terrible convulsions of 
passion and suffering, and pictures of moral and physical wretchedness 
which harrow up the soul, the tender influence of Cordelia, like 
that of a celestial visitant, is felt and acknowledged without being 
quite understood. Like a soft star that shines for a moment from 
behind a stormy cloud, and the next is swallowed up in tempest 
and darkness, the impression it leaves is beautiful and deep, — but 
vague. Speak of Cordelia to a critic or to a general reader, all 
agree in the beauty of the portrait, for all must feel it; but 
when we come to details, I have heard more various and opposite 
opinions relative to her than any other of Shakspeare's characters — 
a proof of what I have advanced in the first instance, that from 
the simplicity with which the character is dramatically treated, and 
the small space it occupies, few are aware of its internal power, 
or its wonderful depth of purpose. 

It appears to me that the whole character rests upon the two 
sublimest principles of human action, the love of truth and the 



CORDELIA. 191 

sense of duty ; but these, when they stand alone (as in the 
Antigone), are apt to strike us as severe and cold. Shakspeare 
has, therefore, wreathed them round with the dearest attributes of 
our feminine nature, the power of feeling and inspiring affection. 
The first part of the play shows us how Cordelia is loved, the 
second part how she can love. To her father she is the object 
of a secret preference ; his agony at her supposed unkindness, draws 
from him the confession, that he had loved her most, and " thought 
to set his rest on her kind nursery." Till then she had been 
" his best object, the argument of his praise, balm of his age, 
most best, most dearest ! " The faithful and worthy Kent is 
ready to brave death and exile in her defence : and afterwards a 
farther impression of her benign sweetness is conveyed in a simple 
and beautiful manner, when we are told that " since the lady 
Cordelia went to France, her father's poor fool had much pined 
away. " We have her sensibility " when patience and sorrow 
strove which should express her goodliest : " and all her filial 
tenderness when she commits her poor father to the care of a 
physician, when she hangs over him as he is sleeping, and 
kisses him as she contemplates the wreck of grief and majesty 



O my dear father! restoration hang 

Its medicine on my lips : and let this kiss 

Repair those violent harms that my two sisters 

Have in thy reverence made ! 

Had you not heen their father, these white flakes 

Had challenged pity of them ! Was this a face 

To be exposed against the warring winds, 

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder, 

In the most terrible and nimble stroke 

Of quick cross lightning ? to watch (poor perdu !) 

With thin helm ? mine enemy's dog, 

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night 

Against my fire. 



Her mild magnanimity shines out in her farewell to her sisters, of 
whose real character she is perfectly aware: 



192 CORDELIA. 

Ye jewels of our father ! with washed eyes 

Cordelia leaves you ! I know ye what ye are, 

And like a sister, am most loath to call 

Your faults as they are nam'd. Use well our father, 

To your professed bosoms I commit him. 

But yet, alas ! stood I within his grace, 

I would commend him to a better place ; 

So farewell to you both. 

GONERIL. 

Prescribe not us our duties ! 

The modest pride with which she replies to the Duke of Burgundy 
is admirable; this whole passage is too illustrative of the peculiar 
character of Cordelia, as well as too exquisite to he mutilated. 

I yet beseech your majesty 
(If, for I want that glib and oily heart, 
To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend 
I '11 do 't before I speak), that you make known, 
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness, 
No unchaste action, or dishonored step 
That hath deprived me of your grace and favor, 
But even for want of that, for which I am richer; 
A still soliciting eye, and such a tongue 
I am glad I have not, tho' not to have it 
Hath lost me in your liking. 



Better thou 
Hadst not been born, than not to have pleased me belter. 



Is it but this ? a tardiness of nature, 

That often leaves the history unspoke 

Which it intends to do ? — My lord of Burgundy, 

What say you to the lady ? love is not love 

When it is mingled with respects that stand 

Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her ? 

She is herself a dowry. 



CORDELIA. 193 

BURGUNDY. 

Royal Lear, 
Give but that portion which yourself proposed, 
And here I take Cordelia by the hand 
Duchess of Burgundy. 

LEAR. 

Nothing : I have sworn ; I am firm. 



BURGUNDY. 



I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father 
That you must lose a husband. 



Peace be with Burgundy ! 
Since that respects of fortune are his love, 
I 6hall not be his wife. 



Fairest Cordelia! thou art more rich, being poor, 
Most choice, forsaken, and most lov'd, despised! 
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon. 

She takes up arms, "not for ambition, tut a dear father's right." 
In her speech after her defeat, we have a calm fortitude and elevation 
of soul, arising from the consciousness of duty, and lifting her above 
all consideration of self. She observes, — 

We are not the first 
Who with best meaning have incurred the worst ! 

She thinks and fears only for her father. 

For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down; 
Myself would else out-frown false fortune's frown. 

To complete the picture her very voice is characteristic, " ever 
soft, gentle, and low ; an excellent thing in woman." 
25 



194 CORDELIA. 

But it will be said that the qualities here exemplified — as 
sensibility, gentleness, magnanimity, fortitude, generous affection — 
are qualities which belong, in their perfection, to others of 
Shakspeare's characters — to Imogen for instance, who unites them 
all; and yet Imogen and Cordelia are wholly unlike each other. 
Even though we should reverse their situations, and give to Imogen 
the filial devotion of Cordelia, and to Cordelia, the conjugal 
virtues of Imogen, still they would remain perfectly distinct as 
women. What is it, then, which lends to Cordelia that peculiar and 
individual truth of character, which distinguishes her from every 
other human being 1 

It is a natural reserve, a tardiness of disposition, " which often 
leaves the history unspoke which it intends to do ; " a subdued 
quietness of deportment and expression, a veiled shyness thrown 
over all her emotions, her language and her manner; making the 
outward demonstration invariably fall short of what we know to be 
the feeling within. Not only is the portrait singularly beautiful 
and interesting in itself, but the conduct of Cordelia, and the part 
which she bears in the beginning of the story, is rendered consistent 
and natural by the wonderful truth and delicacy Avith which this 
peculiar disposition is sustained throughout the play. 

In early youth, and more particularly, if we are gifted with a 
lively imagination, such a character as that of Cordelia is calculated 
above every other to impress and captivate us. Anything like 
mystery, anything withheld or withdrawn from our notice, seizes on 
our fancy by awakening our curiosity. Then we are won more 
by what we half perceive and half create, than by what is openly 
expressed and freely bestowed. But this feeling is a part of our 
young life : when time and years have chilled us, when we can 
no longer afford to send our souls abroad, nor from our own 
superfluity of life and sensibility spare the materials out of which 
we build a shrine for our idol — then do we seek, we ask, we thirst 
for that warmth of frank, confiding tenderness, which revives in us 
the withered affections and feelings, buried but not dead. Then 
the excess of love is welcomed, not repelled : it is gracious to us 
as the sun and dew to the seared and riven trunk, with its lew- 
green leaves. Lear is old — " fourscore and upward " — but we see 



CORDELIA. 195 

what he has been in former days . the ardent passions of youth 
have turned to rashness and wilfulness : he is long passed that 
age when we are' more blessed in what we bestow than in what 
we receive. When he says to his daughters, " I gave ye all ! " 
we feel that he requires all in return, with a jealous, restless, 
exacting affection which defeats its own wishes. How many such 
are there in the world ! How many to sympathize with the fiery, 
f ond old man, when he shrinks as if petrified from Cordelia's 
quiet calm reply ! 



Now our joy, 
Although the last not least — 
What can you say to draw 
A third more opulent than your sisters' ? Speak ! 

CORDELIA. 

Nothing, my lord. 

LEAK. 

Nothing ! 

CORDELIA. 

Nothing. 

LEAR. 

Nothing can come of nothing : speak again ! 



Unhappy that I am ! I cannot heave 

My heart into my mouth : I love your majesty 

According to my hond ■ nor more, nor less. 

Now this s perfectly natural. Cordelia has penetrated the vile 
characters oi her sisters. Is it not obvious, that, in proportion as 
her own mind is pure and guileless, she must be disgusted with 
their gross hypocrisy and exaggeration, their empty protestations, 



196 CORDELIA. 

their " plaited cunning ; " and would retire from all competition 
with what she so disdains and abhors, — even into the opposite 
extreme 1 In such a case, as she says herself — * 



What should Cordelia do? — love and be silent. 



For the very expressions of Lear — 



What can you say to draw 
A third more opulent than your sisters'? 



are enough to strike dumb for ever a generous, delicate, but 
shy disposition such as is Cordelia's, by holding out a bribe for 
professions. 

If Cordelia were not thus portrayed, this deliberate coolness would 
strike us as verging on harshness or obstinacy; but it is beautifully 
represented as a certain modification of character, the necessary 
result of feelings habitually, if not naturally repressed : and through 
the whole play we trace the same peculiar and individual 
disposition — the same absence of all display — the same sobriety 
of speech veiling the most profound affections — the same quiet 
steadiness of purpose — the same shrinking from all exhibition of 
emotion. 

" Tous les sentimens naturels ont leur pudeur, " was a viva voce 
observation of Madame de Stael, when disgusted by the sentimental 
affectation of her imitators. This " pudeur, " carried to an 
excess, appears to me the peculiar characteristic of Cordelia. 
Thus, in the description of her deportment when she receives 
the letter of the Earl of Kent, informing her of the cruelty of 
her sisters and the wretched condition of Lear, we seem to have 
her before us : — 

KEHT. 

Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief ? 



CORDELIA. 197 

GENTLEMAN. 

Ay sir, she took them, and read them in my presence; 
And now and then an ample tear stole down 
Her delicate cheek. It seemed she was a queen 
Over her passion ; who, most rebel-like, 
Sought to be king over her. 

KEHT. 

O then it moved her! 

GENTLEMAN. 

Not to a rage. 
Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of father 
Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart, 
Cried, Sisters ! sisters ! Shame of ladies ! Sisters ! 
What, i' the storm ? i' the night ? 
Let pity not be believed ! Then she shook 
The holy water from her heavenly eyes ; 

Then away she started, 
To deal with grief alone. 

Here the last line — the image brought before us of Cordelia 
starting away from observation " to deal with grief alone," is as 
exquisitely beautiful as it is characteristic. 

But all the passages hitherto quoted must yield in beauty and 
power to that scene, in which her poor father recognizes her, 
and in the intervals of distraction asks forgiveness of his wronged 
child. The subdued pathos and simplicity of Cordelia's character, 
her quiet but intense feeling, the misery and humiliation of the 
bewildered old man, are brought before us in so few words, and at 
the same time sustained w 7 ith such a deep intuitive knowledge of the 
innermost workings of the human heart, that as there is nothing 
surpassing this scene in Shakspeare himself, so there is nothing that 
can be compared to it in any other writer. 

CORDELIA. 

How does my royal lord ? How fares your majesty ? 



198 CORDELIA. 

LEAR. 

You do me wrong to take me out of the grave. 
Thou art a soul in bliss ; but I am bound 
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears 
Do scald like molten lead. 

CORDELIA. 

Sir, do you know me ? 

LEAR. 

You are a spirit, I know: when did you die? 

CORDELIA. 

Still, still far wide ! 

PHYSICIAN. 

He 's scarce awake : let him alone awhile. 



Where have I been ? Where am I ? Fair daylight ! 
I am mightily abused. I should even die with pity 
To see another thus. I know not what to say. 
I will not swear these are my hands : Let's see ; 
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured 
Of my condition. 



O look upon me, sir, 
And hold your hands in benediction o'er me :- 
No, sir, you must not kneel. 



Pray, do not mock me: 
1 am a very foolish, fond old man, 
Fourscore and upwards ; and to deal plainly with you. 
I fear I am not in my perfect mind. 
Itlethinks I should know you, and know this man. 
Yet I am doubtful : for I am mainly ignorant 



CORDELIA. 199 

What place this is ; and all the skill I have 
Remembers not these garments ; nor I know not 
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me ! 
For as I am a man, I think this lady 
To be my child Cordelia. 

CORDELIA. 

And so I am, I am. 



Be your tears wet ? Yes, faith. I pray you weep not. 
If you have poison for me I will drink it. 
I know you do not love me ; for your sisters 
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong : 
Yon have some cause, they have not. 



No cause, no cause ! 

As we do not estimate Cordelia's affection for her father by the 
coldness of her language, so neither should we measure her 
indignation against her sisters by the mildness of her expressions. 
What, in fact, can be more eloquently significant, and at the same 
time more characteristic of Cordelia than the single line when 
she and her father are conveyed to their prison : — 

Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters ? 

The irony here is so bitter and intense, and at the same time 
so quiet, so feminine, so dignified in the expression, that who 
but Cordelia would have uttered it in the same manner, or 
would have condensed such ample meaning into so few and simple 
words 1 

We lose sight of Cordelia during the whole of the second and 
third, and great part of the fourth act ; but towards the conclusion 
she reappears. Just as our sense of human misery and wickedness, 
being carried to its extreme height, becomes nearly intolerable, " like 
an engine wrenching our frame of nature from its fixed place," 



200 CORDELIA. 

then, like a redeeming angel, she descends to mingle in the scene, 
"loosening the springs of pity in our eyes," and relieving the 
impressions of pain and terror by those of admiration and a tender 
pleasure. For the catastrophe, it is indeed terrible ! wondrous 
terrible ! When Lear enters with Cordelia dead in his arms, 
compassion and awe so seize on all our faculties, that we are left 
only to silence and to tears. But if I might judge from my own 
sensations, the catastrophe of Lear is not so overwhelming as the 
catastrophe of Othello. We do not turn away with the same 
feeling of absolute unmitigated despair. Cordelia is a saint ready 
prepared for heaven — our earth is not good enough for her: and 
Lear ! — who, after suffering and tortures such as his, would wish 
to see his life prolonged 1 What ! replace a sceptre in that 
shaking hand? — a crown upon that old grey head, on which the 
tempest had poured in its wrath ? — on which the deep dread-bolted 
thunders and the winged lightnings had spent their fury 1 never, 
never ! 

Let him pass ! he hates him 

That would upon the rack of this rough world 

Stretch him out longer. 

In the story of King Lear and his three daughters, as it is 
related in the " delectable and mellifluous " romance of Perceforest, 
and in the Chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the conclusion is 
fortunate. Cordelia defeats her sisters, and replaces her father on 
his throne. Spenser, in his version of the story, has followed 
these authorities. Shakspeare has preferred the catastrophe of the 
old ballad, founded apparently on some lost tradition. I suppose 
it is by way of amending his errors, and bringing back this daring 
innovator to sober history, that it has been thought fit to alter 
the play of Lear for the stage, as they have altered Romeo and 
Juliet: they have converted the seraph-like Cordelia into a puling 
love heroine, and sent her off victorious at the end of the play — 
exit with drums, and colors flying — to be married to Edgar. Now 
anything more absurd, more discordant with all our previous- 
impressions, and with the characters as unfolded to us, can hardly 



CORDELIA. 201 

De imagined. " I cannot conceive, " says Schlegel, " what ideas 
of art and dramatic connection those persons have, who suppose 
we can at pleasure tack a double conclusion to a tragedy — a 
melancholy one for hard-hearted spectators, and a merry one to 
those of softer mould. " The fierce manners depicted in this play, 
the extremes of virtue and vice in the persons, belong to the 
remote period of the story. * There is no attempt at character in 
the old narratives : Regan and Goneril are monsters of ingratitude, 
and Cordelia merely distinguished by her filial piety ; whereas, in 
Shakspeare, this filial piety is an affection quite distinct from the 
qualities which serve to individualize the human being ; we have 
a perception of innate character apart from all accidental 
circumstance : we see that if Cordelia had never known her father, 
had never been rejected from his love, had never been a born 
princess or a crowned queen, she would not have been less 
Cordelia; less distinctly herself; that is, a woman of a steady mind, 
of calm but deep affections, of inflexible truth, of few words, and 
of reserved deportment. 

As to Regan and Goneril — " tigers not daughters " — we might 
wish to regard them as mere hateful chimeras, impossible as they 
are detestable; but unfortunately there was once a Tullia. I know 
not where to look for the prototype of Cordelia : there was a 
Julia Alpinula, the young priestess of Aventicum,f who, unable to 
save her father's life by the sacrifice of her own, died with him — 
" infelix patris, ivfclix proles" — but this is all we know of her 
There was the Roman daughter too. I remember seeing at 
Genoa, Guido's " Pieta Romana," in which the expression of the 
female bending over the aged parent, who feeds from her bosom, 
is perfect, — but it is not a Cordelia : only Raffaele could have 
painted Cordelia. 

But the character which at once suggests itself in comparison 
with Cordelia, as the heroine of filial tenderness and piety, is 



* King Lear may as supposed to have lived about one thousand years before the 
Christian era, being the fourth or fifth in descent from King Brut, the great-grandson 
of jEneas, and the fabulous founder of the kingdom of Britain. 

t She is commemorated by Lord Byron. Vide-Childe Harold, Canto iii 
26 



202 CORDELIA. 

certainly the Antigone of Sophocles. As poetical conceptions, they 
rest on the same basis : they are both pure abstractions of truth, 
piety, and natural affection ; and in both, love, as a passion, is 
kept entirely out of sight: for though the womanly character is 
sustained, by making them the objects of devoted attachment, yet 
to have portrayed them as influenced by passion, would have 
destroyed that unity of purpose and feeling which is one source 
of power; and, besides, have disturbed that serene purity and 
grandeur of soul, which equally distinguishes both heroines. The 
spirit, however, in which the two characters are conceived, 
is as different as possible ; and we must not fail to remark, 
that Antigone, who plays a principal part in two fine tragedies, 
and is distinctly and completely made out, is considered as a 
masterpiece, the very triumph of the ancient classical drama ; 
whereas, there are many among Shakspeare's characters which 
are equal to Cordelia as dramatic conceptions, and superior to 
her in finishing of outline, as well as in the richness of the poetical 
coloring. 

When CEdipus, pursued by the vengeance of the gods, deprived 
of sight by his own mad act, and driven from Thebes by his 
subjects and his sons, wanders forth, abject and forlorn, he is 
.supported by his daughter Antigone ; who leads him from city to 
city, begs for him, and pleads for him against the harsh, rude 
men, who, struck more by his guilt than his misery, would drive 
him from his last asylum. In the opening of the " CEdipus 
Coloneus, " where the wretched old man appears leaning on his 
child, and scats himself in the consecrated Grove of the Furies, 
the picture presented to us is wonderfully solemn and beautiful. 
The patient, duteous tenderness of Antigone; the scene in which 
she pleads for her brother Polynices, and supplicates her father 
to receive his offending son ; her remonstrance to Polynices, 
when she entreats him not to carry the threatened war into his 
native country, arc finely and powerfully delineated ; and in her 
lamentation over CEdipus, when he perishes in the mysterious grove, 
there is a pathetic beauty, apparent even through the stiffness of 
the translation. 



CORDELIA 209 

Alas ! I only wish I might have died 

With my poor father ; wherefore should I ask 

For longer life? 

O I was fond of misery with him ; 

E'en what was most unlovely grew beloved 

When he was with me. O my dearest father, 

Beneath the earth now in deep darkness hid, 

Worn as thou wert with age, to me thou still 

Wert dear, and shalt be ever. 

— Even as he wished he died, 

In a strange land — for such was his desire — 

A shady turf covered his lifeless limbs, 

Nor unlamented fell ! for O these eyes, 

My father, still shall weep for thee, nor time 

E'er blot thee from my memory. 

The filial piety of Antigone is the most affecting part of the 
tragedy of " CEdipus Coloneus:" her sisterly affection, and her heroic 
self-devotion to a religious duty, form the plot of the tragedy called 
by her name. When her two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, had 
slain each other before the walls of Thebes, Creon issued an edict 
forbidding the rites of sepulture to Polynices (as the invader of his 
country), and awarding instant death to those who should dare to 
bury him. We know the importance which the ancients attached to 
the funeral obsequies, as alone securing their admission into the 
Elysian fields. Antigone, upon hearing the law of Creon, which 
thus carried vengeance beyond the grave, enters in the first scene, 
announcing her fixed resolution to brave the threatened punishment: 
her sister Ismene shrinks from sharing the peril of such an 
undertaking, and endeavors to dissuade her from it, on which 
Antigone replies : — 



Wert thou to proffer what I do not ask — 

Thy poor assistance — I would scorn it now; 

Act as thou wilt, I '11 bury him myself: 

Let me perform but that, and death is welcome. 

I '11 do the pious deed, and lay me down 

By my dear brother ; loving and beloved, 

We'll rest together. 



204 CORDELIA. 

She proceeds to execute her generous purpose ; she covers "with 
earth the mangled corse of Polynices, pours over it the accustomed 
libations, is detected in her pious office, and after nobly defending 
her conduct, is led to death by command of the tyrant: her sister 
Ismene, struck with shame and remorse, now comes forward to 
accuse herself as a partaker in the offence, and share her sister's 
punishment ; but Antigone sternly and scornfully rejects her ; and after 
pouring forth a beautiful lamentation on the misery of perishing 
" without the nuptial song — a virgin and a slave," she dies 
a V antique — she strangles herself to avoid a lingering death. 

Hemon, the son of Creon, unable to save her life, kills himself 
upon her grave : but throughout the whole tragedy we are left in 
doubt whether Antigone does or does not return the affection of this 
devoted lover. 

Thus it will be seen that in the Antigone there is a great deal of 
what may be called the effect of situation, as well as a great deal 
of poetry and character: she says the most beautiful things in the 
world, performs the most heroic actions, and all her words and 
actions are so placed before us as to command our admiration. 
According to the classical ideas of virtue and heroism, the character 
is sublime, and in the delineation there is a severe simplicity 
mingled with its Grecian grace, a unity, a grandeur, an elegance, 
which appeal to our taste and our understanding, while they fill 
and exalt the imagination ; but in Cordelia it is not the external 
coloring or form, it is not what she says or does, but what she 
is in herself, what she feels, thinks, and suffers, which continually 
awaken our sympathy and interest. The heroism of Cordelia is 
more passive and tender — it melts into our heart : and in the 
veiled loveliness and unostentatious delicacy of her character, there 
is an effect more profound and artless, if it be less striking and 
less elaborate than in the Grecian heroine. To Antigone we give 
our admiration, to Cordelia our tears. Antigone stands before us 
in her austere and statue-like beauty, like one of the marbles of 
the Parthenon. If Cordelia remind us of anything on earth, it 
is of one of the Madonnas in the old Italian pictures, " with 
downcast eyes beneath th' almighty dove;" and as that heavenly 
form is connected with our human sympathies only by the expression 



CORDELIA. 205 

oi maternal tenderness or maternal sorrow, even so Cordelia would be 
almost too angelic, were she not linked to our earthly feelings, 
bound to our very hearts, by her filial love, her wrongs, her 
sufferings, and her tears. 



HISTORICAL CHARACTERS. 



CLEOPATRA. 



I cannot agree with one of the most philosophical of Shakspeare's 
critics, who has asserted " that the actual truth of particular events, 
in proportion as we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the 
pleasure as well as the dignity of tragedy." If this observation 
applies at all, it is equally just with regard to characters : and in 
either case can we admit it 1 The reverence and the simpleness of 
heart with which Shakspeare has treated the received and admitted 
truths of history — I mean according to the imperfect knowledge of 
his time — is admirable ; his inaccuracies are few : his general accuracy, 
allowing for the distinction between the narrative and the dramatic 
form, is acknowledged to be wonderful. He did not steal the 
precious material from the treasury of history, to debase its purity — 
new-stamp it arbitrarily with effigies and legends of his own devising, 
and then attempt to pass it current, like Dryden, Racine, and the 
rest of those poetical coiners : he only rubbed off the rust, purified 
and brightened it, so that history herself has been known to receive 
it back as sterling. 

Truth, wherever manifested, should be sacred : so Shakspeare 
deemed, and laid no profane hand upon her altars. But tragedy — 
majestic tragedy, is worthy to stand before the sanctuary of Truth, 
and to be the priestess of her oracles. i{ Whatever in religion is 
holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion 
or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from 
without, or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thought from 

27 



210 CLEOPATRA. 

within ; " * — whatever is pitiful in the weakness, sublime in the 
strength, or terrible in the perversion of human intellect, these are 
the domain of Tragedy. Sybil and Muse at once, she holds aloft 
the book of human fate, and is the interpreter of its mysteries. 
It is not, then, making a mock of the serious sorrows of real 
life, nor of those human beings, who lived, suffered and acted 
upon this earth, to array them in her rich and stately robes, and 
present them before us as powers evoked from dust and darkness, 
to awaken the generous sympathies, the terror or the pity of 
mankind. It does not add to the pain, as far as tragedy is a 
source of emotion, that the wrongs and sufferings represented, the 
guilt of Lady Macbeth, the despair of Constance, the arts of 
Cleopatra, and the distresses of Katherine, had a real existence; 
but it adds infinitely to the moral effect as a subject of contemplation 
and a lesson of conduct, f 

I shall be able to illustrate these observations more fully in the 
course of this section, in which we will consider those characters 
which are drawn from history ; and first, Cleopatra. 

Of all Shakspeare's female characters, Miranda and Cleopatra 
appear to me the most wonderful. The first, unequalled as a poetic 
conception; the latter, miraculous as a work of art. If we could 
make a regular classification of his characters, these would form 
the two extremes of simplicity and complexity; and all his other 
characters would be found to fill up some shade or gradation between 
these two. 

Great crimes springing from high passions, grafted on high 
qualities, are the legitimate source of tragic poetry. But to make 
the extreme of littleness produce an effect like grandeur — to make 
the excess of frailty produce an effect like power — to heap up 
together all that is most unsubstantial, frivolous, vain, contemptible, 

* Milton. 

f " That the treachery of King John, the death of Arthur, and the grief of 
Constance, had a real truth in history, sharpens the sense of pain, while it hangs a 
leaden weight on the heart and the imagination. Something whispers us that we 
have no right to make a mock of calamities like these, or to turn the truth of ' 
things into the puppet and plaything of our fancies." — See Characters of Shakspeare's 
Plays. — To consider thus is not to consider too deeply, but not deeply enough. 



CLEOPATRA. 211 

and variable, till the worthlessness be lost in the magnitude and 
a sense of the sublime spring from the very elements of littleness— 
to do this, belonged only to Shakspeare, that worker of miracles. 
Cleopatra is a brilliant antithesis, a compound of contradictions, 
of all that we most hate, with what we most admire. The 
whole character is the triumph of the external over the innate ; 
and yet like one of her country's hieroglyphics, though she present 
at first view a splendid and perplexing anomaly, there is deep 
meaning and wondrous skill in the apparent enigma, when we 
come to analyze and decypher it. But how are we to arrive at 
the solution of this glorious riddle, whose dazzling complexity 
continually mocks and eludes us 1 What is most astonishing in 

the character of Cleopatra, is its antithetical construction its 

consistent inconsistency, if I may use such an expression — which 
renders it quite impossible to reduce it to any elementary principles. 
It will, perhaps, be found on the whole, that vanity and the 
love of power predominate; but I dare not say it is so, for 
these qualities and a hundred others mingle into each other, and 
shift, and change, and glance away, like the colors in a peacock's 
train. 

In some others of Shakspeare's female characters, also remarkable 
for their complexity (Portia and Juliet for instance), we are struck 
with the delightful sense of harmony in the midst of contrast, so 
that the idea of unity and simplicity of effect is produced in the 
midst of variety ; but in Cleopatra it is the absence of unity and 
simplicity which strikes us ; the impression is that of perpetual 
and irreconcilable contrast. The continual approximation of whatever 
is most opposite in character, in situation, in sentiment, would be 
fatiguing, were it not so perfectly natural : the woman herself 
would be distracting, if she were not so enchanting. 

I have not the slightest doubt that Shakspeare's Cleopatra is 
the real historical Cleopatra — the " Rare Egyptian," — individualised 
and placed before us. Her mental accomplishments, her unequalled 
grace, her woman's wit and woman's wiles, her irresistible allurements, 
her starts of irregular grandeur, her bursts of ungovernable temper, 
her vivacity of imagination, her petulant capiice, her fickleness and 
her falsehood, her tenderness and her truth, her childish susceptibility 



212 CLEOPATRA. 

to flattery, her magnificent spirit, her royal pride, the gorgeous 
eastern coloring of the character ; all these contradictory elements 
has Shakspeare seized, mingled them in their extremes, and fused 
them into one brilliant impersonation of classical elegance, Oriental 
voluptuousness, and gipsy sorcery. 

What better proof can we have of the individual truth of the 
character than the admission that Shakspeare's Cleopatra produces 
exactly the same effect on us that is recorded of the real Cleopatra? 
She dazzles our faculties, perplexes our judgment, bewilders and 
bewitches our fancy ; from the beginning to the end of the drama, 
we are conscious of a kind of fascination against which our moral 
sense rebels, but from which there is no escape. The epithets 
applied to her perpetually by Antony and others confirm this 
impression : " enchanting queen !" — " witch" — " spell" — " great fairy" 
— " cockatrice" — " serpent of old Nile" — " thou grave charm ! " * are 
only a few of them; and who does not know by heart the famous 
quotations in which this Egyptian Circe is described with all her 
infinite seductions 1 

Fie ! wrangling queen ! 
Whom everything becomes — to chide, to laugh, 
To weep ; whose every passion fully strives 
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired. 

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
Her infinite variety : — 

For vilest things 
Become themselves in her. 

And the pungent irony of Enobarbus has well exposed her feminine 
arts, when he says, on the occasion of Antony's intended 
departure, — 

Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly : I have seen her 
die twenty times upon far poorer moment. 



1 Grave, in the sense of mighty or potent. 



CLEOPATRA. 213 

AKTONT. 

She is cunning past man's thought. 

ENOBARBUS. 

Alack, sir, no! her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure 
love. We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears ; they are greater 
storms and tempests than almanacks can report; this cannot be cunning in her; 
if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove. 

The whole secret of her absolute dominion over the facile Antony 
may be found in one little speech : — 

See where he is — who's with him — what he does— • 

(I did not send you). If you find him sad, 

Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report 

That I am sudden sick! Quick! and return. 



Madam, methinks if you did love him dearly, 
You do not hold the method to enforce 
The like from him. 

CLEOPATRA. 

What should I do, I do not ? 

CHARMIAN. 
In each tiling give him way ; cross him in nothing. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Thou teachest like a fool : the way to lose him. 

CHAR MIAN. 

Tempt hi in not too far. 

But Cleopatra is a mistress of her art, and knows better : and 
what a picture of her triumphant petulance, her imperious and 
imperial coquetry, is given in her own words ! 



214 CLEOPATRA. 

That time — O times ! 
I laugh'd him out of patience; and that night 
I laughed him into patience : and next morn, 
Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed ; 
Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst 
I wore his sword, Philippan. 

When Antony enters full of some serious purpose which he is 
about to impart, the woman's perverseness, and the tyrannical 
waywardness with which she taunts him and plays upon his temper, 
are admirably depicted. 

I know, by that same eye, there's some good news. 
What says the married woman ? * You may go ; 
Would she had never given you leave to come ! 
Let her not say, 'tis I that keep you here; 
I have no power upon you ; hers you are. 



The gods best know 



O, never was there queen 
So mightily betray'd ! Yet at the first, 
I saw the treasons planted. 

ANTONY. 

Cleopatra ! 

CLEOPATRA. 

Why should I think you can be mine, and true, 
Though you in swearing shake the throned gods, 
Who have been false to Fulvia ? Riotous madness, 
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows, 
Which break themselves in swearing! 



'Fulvia, the first wife of Antony. 



CLEOPATRA. 215 

ANTONY. 

Most sweet queen ! 

CLEOFATEA. 

Nay, pray you, seek no color for your going, 
But bid farewell, and go. 

She recovers her dignity for a moment at the news of Fulvia's 
death, as if roused by a blow : — 

Though age from folly could not give me freedom, 
It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die ? 

And then follows the artful mockery with which she tempts and 
provokes him, in order to discover whether he regrets his wife. 

O most false love ! 
Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill 
With sorrowful water ? Now I see, I see 
In Fulvia's death, how mine receiv'd shall be. 



Quarrel no more ; but be prepared to know 
The purposes I bear : which are, or cease, 
As you shall give lh' advice. Now, by the fire 
That quickens Nilus' shrine, I go from hence 
Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war, 
As thou affectest. 

CLEOPATKA. 

Cut my lace, Charrnian, come — 
But let it be. I am quickly ill, and well, 
So Antony loves. 



My precious queen, forbear : 
And give true evidence to his love which stands 
An honorable trial. 



210 CLEOPATRA. 

CLEOPATRA. 

So Fulvia told me. 
I pr'ythee turn aside, and weep for her: 
Then bid adieu to me, and say, the tears 
Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene 
Of excellent dissembling ; and let it look 
Like perfect honor. 

ANTONY. 

You '11 heat my blood — no more ! 

CLEOPATRA. 

You can do better yet; but this is meetly. 



Now, by my sword — 

CLEOPATRA. 

And target — still he mends : 
But this is not the best. Look, pr'ythee, Charmian, 
How this Herculean Roman does become 
The carriage of his chafe ! 

This is, indeed, " most excellent dissembling ; " but when she has 
fooled and chafed the Herculean Roman to the verge of danger, 
then comes that return of tenderness which secures the power she 
has tried to the utmost, and we have all the elegant, the poetical 
Cleopatra in her beautiful farewell. 

Forgive me ! 
Since my becomings kill me when they do not 
Eye well to you. Your honor calls you hence, 
Therefore bo deaf to my unpitied folly, 
And all the gods go with you ! Upon your sword 
Sit laurell'd victory ; and smooth success 
Be strew'd before your feet ! 

Finer still are the workings of her variable mind and lively 
imagination, after Antony's departure ; her fond repining at his 



CLEOPATRA. 217 

absence, her violent spirit, her right royal wilfulness and impatience, 
as if it were a wrong to her majesty, an insult to her sceptre, 
that there should exist in her despite such things as space and 
time; and high treason to her sovereign power, to dare to remember 
what she chooses to forget. 

Give me to drink mandragora, 

That I might sleep out this great gap of time 

My Antony is away. 

O Charmian ! 

Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sita he, 

Or does he walk ? or is he on his horse ? 

O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony ! 

Do bravely, horse ! for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st ? 

The demi-Atlas of this earth — the arm 

And burgonet of men. He's speaking now, 

Or murmuring, Where's my serpent of old Nile ? 

For so he calls me. 

Met'st thou my posts ? 



Ay, madam, twenty several messengers ■ 
Why do you send so thick ? 

CLEOPATRA. 

Who's born that day 
When I forget to send to Antony, 
Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian. 
Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian, 
Ever love Cssar so ? 

CHARMIAN. 

O that brave Caesar! 

CLEOPATRA. 



Be chok'd with such another emphasis ! 
Say, the brave Antony. 



CHARMIAN. 



The valiant Csesar ! 
28 



218 CLEOPATRA. 



By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth, 
If thou with Caesar paragon again 
My man of men ! 



By your most gracious pardon, 
I sing but after you. 



CLEOPATKA. 



My salad days, 
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood, 
To say as I said then. But, come away — 
Get me some ink and paper : he shall have every day 
A several greeting, or I'll unpeople Egypt. 

We learn from Plutarch, that it was a favorite amusement with 
Antony and Cleopatra to ramble through the streets at night, and 
bandy ribald jests with the populace of Alexandria. From the 
same authority, we know that they were accustomed to live on the 
most familiar terms with their attendants and the companions of 
their revels. To these traits we must add, that with all her 
violence, perverseness, egotism, and caprice, Cleopatra mingled a 
capability for warm affections and kindly feeling, or rather what 
we should call in these days, a constitutional gond-nature ; and was 
lavishly generous to her favorites and dependants. These characteristics 
we find scattered through the play; they are not only faithfully 
rendered by Shakspeare, but he has made the finest use of them 
in his delineation of manners. Hence the occasional freedom of 
her women and her attendants, in the midst of their fears and 
flatteries, becomes most natural and consistent: hence, too, their 
devoted attachment and fidelity, proved even in death. But as 
illustrative of Cleopatra's disposition, perhaps the finest and most 
characteristic scene in the whole play, is that in which the 
messenger arrives from Rome with the tidings of Antony's marriage 
with Octavia. She perceives at once with quickness that all is 
not well, and she hastens to anticipate the worst, that she may 



CLEOPATRA. 219 

have the pleasure of being disappointed. Her impatience to 
know what she fears to learn, the vivacity with which she 
gradually works herself up into a state of excitement, and at 
length into fury, is wrought out with a force of truth which makes 
us recoil. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Antony's dead! 
If thou say so, villain, thou kill'st thy mistress. 
But well and free, 

If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here 
My bluest veins to kiss ; a hand that kings 
Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing. 

MESSENGER. 

First, madam, he is well. 

CLEOrATRA. 

Why, there's more gold. But, sirrah, mark ! we use 
To say, the dead are well: bring it to that, 
The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour 
Down thy ill-uttering throat, 

MESSENGER. 

Good madam, hear me. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Well, go to, I will. 
But there 's no goodness in thy face. If Antony 
Be free and healthful, why so tart a favor 
To trumpet such good tidings ? If not well, 
Thou should'st come like a fury crown'd with snakes. 

MESSENGER. 

Wil't please you hear me 1 

CLEOPATRA. 

I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st; 
Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well, 



220 CLEOPATRA. 

Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him, 
I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail 
Rich pearls upon thee. 

MESSENGER. 

Madam, he's well. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Well said. 

MESSENGER. 

And friends with Caesar. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Thou art an honest man. 

MESSENGER. 

Caesar and he are greater friends than ever. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Make thee a fortune from me. 

MESSENGER. 

But yet, madam — 

CLEOPATRA. 

I do not like but yet — it does allay 

The good precedence. Fie upon but yet: 

But yet is as a gaoler to bring forth 

Some monstrous malefactor. Pr'ythee, friend, 

Pour out thy pack of matter to mine ear, 

The good and bad together. He's friends with Caesar; 

In state of health, thou say'st; and thou say'st free. 

MESSENGER. 

Free, madam ! No : I made no such report, 
He's bound unto Octavia. 



CLEOPATRA. 221 

CLEOPATRA. 

For what good turn ? 

MESSENGER. 

Madam, he's married to Octavia. 

CLEOPATRA. 

The most infectious pestilence upon thee ! [Strikes Mm down. 

MESSENGER. 

Good madam, patience. 

CLEOPATRA. 

What say you? [Strikes Mm again. 

Hence horrible villain ! or I '11 spurn thine eyes 
Like balls before me — I '11 unhair thine head — 
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stewed in brine, 
Smarting in ling'ring pickle. 

MESSENGER. 



Gracious madam ! 
I, that do bring the news, made not the match. 



CLEOPATRA. 

Say 'tis not 60, a province I will give thee, 
And make thy fortunes proud : the blow thou hadst 
Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage; 
And I will boot thee with what gift beside 
Thy modesty can beg. 

MESSENGER. 

He 's married, madam. 



CLEOPATRA. 

Rogue, thou hast lived too long. [Draws a dagger 



222 CLEOPATRA 

MESSENGER. 



Nay then I '11 run. 

What mean you, madam ? I have made no fault. [Exit 



CHARMIAW. 



Good madam, keep yourself within yourself; 
The man is innocent. 



CLEOPATRA. 

Some innocents, 'scape not the thunderbolt. 
Melt Egypt into Nile ! and kindly creatures 
Turn all to serpents ! Call the slave again ; 
Though I am mad, I will not bite liim — Call! 

CHARMIAN. 

He is afraid to come. 

CLEOPATRA. 

I will not hurt him. 
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike 
A meaner than myself. 



CLEOPATRA. 

In praising Antony, I have dispraised Caesar. 

CHARMIAN. 

Many times, madam. 

CLEOPATRA. 

I am paid for 't now — 
Lead me from hence. 

I faint. O Iras, Charmian — 'tis no matter: 
Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him 
Report the features' of Octavia, her years, 
Her inclination — let him not leave out 

The color of her hair. Bring me word quickly. [Exit Alex, 

Let him for ever go — let him not — Charmian, 
Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon, 



CLEOPATRA. 223 

T' other way he 's a Mars. Bid you Alexas [ To Mardian. 

Bring me word how tall she is. Pity me, Charmian, 
But do not speak to me. Load me to my chamber. 

I have given this scene entire because I know nothing comparable 
to it. The pride and arrogance of the Egyptian queen, the 
blandishment of the woman, the unexpected but natural transitions 
of temper and feeling, the contest of various passions, and at 
length — when the wild hurricane has spent its fury — the melting 
into tears, faintness, and languishment, are portrayed with the most 
astonishing power, and truth, and skill in feminine nature. More 
wonderful still is the splendor and force of coloring which is shed 
over this extraordinary scene. The mere idea of an angry woman 
beating her menial, presents something ridiculous or disgusting to 
the mind; in a queen or a tragedy heroine it is still more 
indecorous ; * yet this scene is as far as possible from the vulgar 
or the comic. Cleopatra seems privileged to " touch the brink of 
all we hate" with impunity. This imperial termagant, this "wrangling 
queen, whom everything becomes," becomes even her fury. We 
know not by what strange power it is, that in the midst of all 
these unruly passions and childish caprices, the poetry of the 
character, and the fanciful and sparkling grace of the delineation, 
are sustained and still rule in the imagination ; but we feel that 
it is so. 

I need hardly observe, that we have historical authority for the 
excessive violence of Cleopatra's temper. Witness the story of her 
boxing the ears of her treasurer in presence of Octavius, as related 
by Plutarch. Shakspeare has made a fine use of this anecdote also 
towards the conclusion of the drama, but it is not equal in power 
to this scene with the messenger. 

The man is afterwards brought back, almost by force, to satisfy 
Cleopatra's iealous anxiety, by a description of Octavia : — but this 
time, made wise by experience, he takes care to adapt his 



*The well known violence and coarseness of Queen Elizabeth's manners, in 
which she was imitated by the women about her, may in Shakspeare's time have 
rendered the image of a royal virago less offensive and less extraordinary. 



224 CLEOPATRA. 

information to the humors of his imperious mistress, and gives 
her a satirical picture of her rival. The scene which follows, in 
which Cleopatra — artful, acute, and penetrating as she is — becomes 
the dupe of her feminine spite and jealousy, nay, assists in duping 
herself; and after having cuffed the messenger for telling her 
truths which are offensive, rewards him for the falsehood which 
flatters her weakness — is not only an admirable exhibition ot 
character, but a fine moral lesson. 

She concludes, after dismissing the messenger with gold and 
thanks, 

I repent me much 
That I so harry'd him. Why, methinks by him 
This creature's no such thing? 

CHARMIAN. 

O nothing, madam. 

CIXOPATKA. 

The man hath seen some majesty, and should know ! 

Do we not fancy Cleopatra drawing herself up with all the vain 
consciousness of rank and beauty as she pronounces this last line 1 
and is not this the very woman who celebrated her own apotheosis, — 
who arrayed herself in the robe and diadem of the goddess Isis, 
and could find no titles magnificent enough for her children but 
those of the Sun and the Moon. 

The despotism and insolence of her temper are touched- in some 
other places most admirably. Thus, when she is told that the 
Romans libel and abuse her, she exclaims, — 

Sink Rome, and their tongues rot 
That speak against us ! 

And when one of her attendants observes that " Herod of Jewry dared 
not look upon her but when she were well pleased," she immediately 
replies, " That Herod's head I'll have." * 

* She was as good as her word. Sea the life of Antony in Plutarch 



CLEOPATRA. 225 

When Proculeius surprises her in her monument, and snatches 
her poniard from her, terror, and fury, pride, passion, and 
disdain, swell in her haughty soul, and seem to shake her very 
being. 

CLEOPATEA. 

Where art thou, death ? 
Come hither, come ! come, come and take a queen 
Worth many babes and beggars ! 

PROCULEItrS. 

temperance, lady ! 

CLEOPATRA. 

Sir, I will eat no meat ; I '11 not drink, sir : 
If idle talk will once be necessary. 

1 '11 not sleep neither ; this mortal house I '11 ruin, 
Do Cssar what he can ! Know, sir, that I 
Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court, 
Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye 

Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up, 
And show me to the shouting varletry, 
Of censuring Rome ? Rather a ditch in Egypt 
Be gentle grave to me ! Rather on Nilus' mud 
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies 
Blow me into abhorring ! Rather make 
, My country's high pyramids my gibbet, 

And hang me up in chains ! 

In the same spirit of royal bravado, but finer still, and worked up 
with a truly Oriental exuberance of fancy and imagery, is her famous 
description of Antony, addressed to Dolabella : — 

Most noble empress, you have heard of me ? 

CLEOPATRA. 

I cannot tell. 

DOLABELLA. 

Assuredly, you know me. 
29 



226 C L E O P A T RA . 

CLEOPATRA. 

No matter, sir, what I have heard or known. 

You laugh when boys, or women, tell their dreams; 

Is 't not your trick ? 

DOLABELLA. 

I understand not, madam. 

CLEOPATKA. 

I dream'd there was an emperor Antony ; 
O such another sleep, that I might see 
But such another man ! 

DOLABELLA. 

If it might please you 

CLEOPATKA. 

His face was as the heavens ; and therein stuck 

A sun and moon; which kept their course, and lighted 

The little O, the earth. 

DOLABELLA. 

Most sovereign creature 

CLEOPATKA. 

His legs bestrid the ocean: his reared arm 

Crested the world; his voice was propertied 

As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends ; 

But when he meant to quail or shake the orb 

He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, 

There was no winter in 't ; an autumn 't was, 

That grew the more by reaping. His delights 

Were dolphin like ; they show'd his back above 

The element they liv'd in. In his livery* 

Walk'd crowns and coronets; realms and islands were 

As plates f dropp'd from his pocket 



' t e. retinue. f i. e. silver coins from the Spanish plata. 



CLEOPATRA. 227 

DOLABELLA. 

Cleopatra ! 

CLEOPATKA. 

Think you there was, or might be, such a man 
As this I dream'd of? 

DOLABELLA. 

Gentle madam, no. 

CLEOPATKA. 

You lie, — up to the hearing of the gods ! 

There was no room left in this amazing picture for the display 
of that passionate maternal tenderness, which was a strong and 
redeeming feature in Cleopatra's historical character; but it is not 
left untouched ; for when she is imprecating mischiefs on herself, 
she wishes, as the last and worst of possible evils, that " thunder 
may smite Caesarion!" 

In representing the mutual passion of Antony and Cleopatra as 
real and fervent, Shakspeare has adhered to the truth of history as 
well as to general nature. On Antony's side it is a species of 
infatuation, a single and engrossing feeling: it is, in short, the 
love of a man declined in years for a woman very much younger 
than himself, and who has subjected him to every species of female 
enchantment. In Cleopatra the passion is of a mixt nature, made 
up of real attachment, combined with the love of pleasure, the 
love of power, and the love of self. Not only is the character 
most complicated, but no one sentiment could have existed pure 
and unvarying in such a mind as hers : her passion in itself is 
true, fixed to one centre; but like the pennon streaming from the 
mast, it flutters and veers with every breath of her variable temper; 
yet in the midst of all her caprices, follies, and even vices, 
womanly feeling is still predominant in Cleopatra : and the change 
which takes place in her deportment towards Antony, when their 
evil fortune darkens round them, is as beautiful and interesting in 
itself as it is striking and natural. Instead of the airy caprice 



228 CLEOPATRA. 

and provoking petulance she displays in the first scenes, we have 
a mixture of tenderness, and artifice, and fear, and submissive 
blandishment. Her behavior, for instance, after the battle of 
Actium, when she quails before the noble and tender rebuke 
of her lover, is partly female subtlety, and partly natural feeling. 

CLEOPATRA. 

O my lord, my lord, 
Forgive my fearful sails ! I little thought 
You would have follow'd. 



Egypt) th 011 know'st too well 
My heart was to the rudder tied by the strings, 
And tliou should'st tow me after. O'er my spirit 
Thy full supremacy thou know'st ; and that 
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods 
Command me. 

CLEOPATRA. 

O, my pardon ! 



Now I must 
To the young man send humble treaties, dodge 
And palter in the shifts of lowness ; who 
With half the bulk o' the world play'd as I pleas'd, 
Making and marring fortunes. You did know 
How much you were my conqueror ; and that 
My sword, made weak by my affection, would 
Obey it on all cause. 

CLEOPATRA. 

O pardon, pardon! 



Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates 
All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss ; 
Even this repays me. 



CLEOPATRA. 229 

It is perfectly in keeping with the individual character, that 
Cleopatra, alike destitute of moral strength and physical courage, 
should cower, terrified and subdued, before the masculine spirit 
of her lover, when once she has fairly roused it. Thus Tasso's 
Armida, half syren, half sorceress, in the moment of strong feeling, 
forgets her incantations, and has recourse to persuasion, to prayers, 
and to tears. 

Lascia gl' incanti, e vuol provar se vaga 
E supplice belta sia miglior maga. 

Though the poet afterwards gives us to understand, that even in 
this relinquishment of art there was a more refined artifice. 

Nella doglia amara 
Gia tutte non oblia 1' arti e le frodi. 

And something like this inspires the conduct of Cleopatra towards 
Antony in his fallen fortunes. The reader should refer to that 
fine scene, where Antony surprises Thyreus kissing her hand, " that 
kingly seal and plighter of high hearts," and rages like a thousand 
hurricanes. 

The character of Mark Antony, as delineated by Shakspeare, 
reminds me of the Farnese Hercules. There is an ostentatious 
display of power, an exaggerated grandeur, a colossal effect in the 
whole conception, sustained throughout in the pomp of the language 
which seems, as it flows along, to resound with the clang of arms, 
and the music of the revel. The coarseness and violence of the 
historic portrait are a little kept down; but every word which 
Antony utters is characteristic of the arrogant but magnanimous 
Roman, who " with half the hulk o' the world played as he 
pleased," and was himself the sport of a host of mad (and bad) 
passions, and the slave of a woman. 

History is followed closely in all the details of the catastrophe, 
and there is something wonderfully grand in the hurried march of 
events towards the conclusion. As disasters hem her round, Cleopatra 
gathers up her faculties to meet them, not with the calm fortitude of 



230 CLEOPATRA 

a great soul, but the haughty, tameless spirit of a wilful woman, 
unused to reverse or contradiction. 

Her speech, after Antony has expired in her arms, I have 
always regarded as one of the most wonderful in Shakspeare. 
Cleopatra is not a woman to grieve silently. The contrast between 
the violence of her passions and the weakness of her sex, between 
her regal grandeur and her excess of misery, her impetuous, 
unavailing struggles with the fearful destiny which has compassed 
her, and the mixture of wild impatience and pathos in her agony, 
are really magnificent. She faints on the body of Antony, and is 
recalled to life by the cries of her women : — 

IRAS. 

Royal Egypt — empress ! 

CLEOPATRA. 

No more, but e'en a woman ! * and commanded 

By such poor passion as the maid that milks, 

And does the meanest chares. — It were for me 

To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods : 

To tell them that our world did equal theirs 

Till they had stolen our jewel. All's but nought; 

Patience is sottish, and impatience does 

Become a dog that 's mad. Then is it sin 

To rush into the secret house of death 

Ere death dare come to us ? How do you, women ? 

What, what? good cheer! why how now, Charm ian? 

My noble girls ! — ah, women, women ! look 

Our lamp is spent, is out. 

We '11 bury him, and then what 's brave, what's noble, 

Let 's do it after the high Roman fashion, 

And make death proud to take us. 

But although Cleopatra talks of dying " after the high Roman 
fashion," she fears what she most desires, and cannot perform 
with simplicity what costs her such an effort. That extreme 

• Cleopatra replies to the fust word she hears on recovering her senses, " Nr 
more an empress, but a mere woman ! " 



CLEOPATRA. 231 

physical cowardice, which was so strong a trait in her historical 
character, which led to the defeat of Actium, which made her 
delay the execution of a fatal resolve, till she had tried " conclusions 
infinite of easy ways to die," Shakspeare has rendered with the 
finest possible effect, and in a manner which heightens instead of 
diminishing our respect and interest. Timid by nature, she is 
courageous by the mere force of will, and she lashes herself up 
with high-sounding words into a kind of false daring. Her 
lively imagination suggests every incentive, which can spur her 
on to the deed she has resolved, yet trembles to contemplate. \ 
She pictures to herself all the degradations which must attend 
her captivity; and iet it be observed, that those which she 
anticipates are precisely such as a vain, luxurious, and haughty 
woman would especially dread, and which only true virtue and 
magnanimity could despise. Cleopatra could have endured the 
loss of freedom ; but to be led in triumph through the streets 
of Rome is insufferable. She could stoop to Ceesar with dissembling 
courtesy, and meet duplicity with superior art; but "to be chastised" 
by the scornful or upbraiding glance of the injured Octavia — " rather 
i ditch in Egypt. " 

If knife, drugs, serpents, have 
Edges, sting, or operation, I am safe. 
Your wife, Octavia, with her modest eyes, 
And still conclusion,* shall acquire no honor 
Demuring -upon me. 

Now, Iras, what think'st thou? 
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shaft he shown 
In Rome as well as I. Mechanic slaves, 
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall 
Uplift us to the view. In their thick breaths, 
Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded, 
And forc'd to drink their vapor. 

ieas. 

The gods forbid ! 

* :. e. eedate determination. — Johnson-. 



232 CLEOPATRA 



CLEOPATRA. 



Nay, 'tis moa. certain, Iras. Saucy lictors 

Will catch at us like strumpets ; and scald rhymers 

Ballad us out o' tune. The quick comedians 

Extemporally will stage us, and present 

Our Alexandrian revels. Antony 

Shall be brought drunken forth ; and I shall see 

Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness. 



She then calls for her diadem, her robes of state, and attires 
herself as if " again for Cydnus, to meet Mark Antony." Coquette 
to the last, she must make Death proud to take her, and die " phosnix 
like," as she had lived, with all the pomp of preparation — luxurious 
in her despair. 

The death of Lucretia, of Portia, of Arria, and others who died 
" after the high Roman fashion," is sublime according to the Pagan 
ideas of virtue, and yet none of them so powerfully affect the 
imagination, as the catastrophe of Cleopatra. The idea of this 
frail, timid, wayward woman, dying with heroism, from the mere 
force of passion and will, takes us by surprise. The Attic elegance 
of her mind, her poetical imagination, the pride of beauty and 
royalty predominating to the last, and the sumptuous and picturesque 
accompaniments with which she surrounds herself in death, carry 
to its extreme height that effect of contrast which prevails 
through her life and character. No arts, no invention could add 
to the real circumstances of Cleopatra's closing scene. Shakspeare 
has shown profound judgment and feeling, in adhering closely to 
the classical authorities; and to say that the language and 
sentiments worthily fill up the outline, is the most magnificent 
praise that can be given. t The magical play of fancy, and the 
overpowering fascination of the character, are kept up to the last; 
and when Cleopatra, on applying the asp, silences the lamentations 
of her women : — 



Peace ! peace ! 
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, 
That sucks the nurse to sleep? — 



CLEOPATRA. 233 

These few words — the contrast between the tender beauty of the 
image, and the horror of the situation — produce an effect more 
intensely mournful than all the ranting in the world. The generous 
devotion of her women adds the moral charm which alone was 
wanting; and when Octavius hurries in too late to save his victim, 
and exclaims when gazing on her — 

She looks like sleep — 
As she would catch another Antony 
In her strong toil of grace, 

the image of her beauty and her irresistible arts, triumphant even 
in death, is at once brought before us, and one masterly and 
comprehensive stroke consummates this most wonderful, most dazzling 
delineation. 

I am not here the apologist of Cleopatra's historical character, 
nor of such women as resemble her; I am considering her merely 
as a dramatic portrait of astonishing beauty, spirit, and originality. 
She has furnished the subject of two Latin, sixteen French, six 
English, and at least four Italian tragedies;* yet Shakspeare alone 
has availed himself of all the interest of the story, without 
falsifying the character. He alone has dared to exhibit the Egyptian 
queen with all her greatness and all her littleness — all her frailties 
of temper — all her paltry acts and dissolute passions — yet preserved 
the dramatic propriety and poetical coloring of the character, and 
awakened our pity for fallen grandeur, without once beguiling us 
into sympathy with guilt and error. Corneille has represented 
Cleopatra as a model of chaste propriety, magnanimity, constancy, 



* The Cleopatra of Jodelle was the first regular French tragedy : the last French 
tragedy on the same subject was the Cleopatre of Marmontel. For the representation 
of this tragedy, Vaucanson, the celebrated French mechanist, invented an automaton 
asp, which crawled and hissed to the life— to the great delight of the Parisians. 
But it appears that neither Vaucanson's asp, nor Clairon, could save Cleopatre from 
a deserved fate. Of the English tragedies, one was written by the Countess of 
Pembroke, the sister of Sir Philip Sydney ; and is, I believe, the first instance in 
our language of original dramatic writing, by a female. 

30 



234 CLEOPATRA. 

and every female virtue; and the effect is almost ludicrous. In our 
own language, we have two very fine tragedies on the story of 
Cleopatra : in that of Dryden, which is in truth a noble poem, and 
which he himself considered his master-piece, Cleopatra is a mere 
common-place " all for love" heroine, full of constancy and fine 
sentiments For instance : — 

My love's so true, 
That I can neither hide it where it is, 
Nor show it where it is not. Nature meant me 
A wife — a silly, harmless, household dove, 
Fond without art, and kind without deceit. 
But Fortune, that has made a mistress of me, 
Has thrust me out to the wild world, unfurnished 
Of falsehood to be happy. 

Is this Antony's Cleopatra — the Circe of the Nile — the Venus of 
the Cydnus 1 She never uttered anything half so mawkish in her 
life. 

In Fletcher's " False One," Cleopatra is represented at an earlier 
period of her history : and to give an idea of the aspect under 
which the character is exhibited (and it does not vary throughout 
the play), I shall give one scene ; if it be considered out of place, 
its extreme beauty will form its best apology. 

Ptolomy and his council having exhibited to Caesar all the 
royal treasures in Egypt, he is so astonished and dazzled at 
the view of the accumulated wealth, that he forgets the presence 
of Cleopatra, and treats her with negligence. The following 
scene between her and her sister Arsinoe occurs immediately 
afterwards. 



You're so impatient ! 



CLEOPATRA. 



Have I not cause ? 
Women of common beauties and low births, 
When they are slighted are allowed their angers — 



CLEOPATRA. 2 35 

Why should not I. a princess, make him know 
The baseness of his usage ? 



Yes, 'tis fit: 
But then again you know what man- 



He's no man ! 
The shadow of a greatness hangs upon him 
And not the virtue; he is no conqueror, 
Has suffered under the base dross of nature; 
Poorly delivered up his power to wealth. 
The god of bed-rid men taught his eyes treason; 
Against the truth of love he has rais'd rebellion- 
Defied his holy flames. 



And satisfy your grace. 



EROS. 

He will fall back again, 



CLEOPATRA. 



Had I been old, 
Or blasted in my bud, he might have show'd 
Some shadow of dislike : but to prefer 
The lustre of a little trash, Arsinoe, 
And the poor glow-worm light of some faint jewels 
Before the light of love, and soul of beauty — 
O how it vexes me ! He is no soldier : 
All honorable soldiers are Love's servants. 
He is a merchant, a mere wandering merchant, 
Servile to gain ; he trades for poor commodities, 
And makes his conquests, thefts! Some fortunate captains 
That quarter with him, and are truly valiant, 
Have flung the name of "Happy Caesar" on him; 
Himself ne'er won it. He 's so base and covetous, 
He'll sell his sword for gold. 

AKSDIOE. 

This is too bitter. 



236 CLEOPATRA. 

CLEOPATKA. 

I could curse myself, that was so foolish, 
So fondly childish, to believe his tongue — 

His promising tongue — ere I could catch his temper. 

1 'd trash enough to have cloy'd his eyes withal 
(His covetous eyes), such as I scorn to tread on, 
Richer than e'er he saw yet, and more tempting ; 

Had I known he 'd stoop'd at that, I 'd sav'd mine honor- 

I had been happy still ! But let him take it. 

And let him brag how poorly I 'm rewarded ; 

Let him go conquer still weak wretched ladies ; 

Love has his angry quiver too, his deadly, 

And when he finds scorn, armed at the strongest — 

I am a fool to fret thus for a fool, — 

An old blind fool too ! I lose my health ; I will not, 

I will not cry ; I will not honor him 

With "tears diviner than the gods he worships ; 

I will not take the pains to curse a poor thing. 



ENOS. 

Do not; you shall not need. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Would I were prisoner 
To one I hate, that I might anger him ! 
I will love any man to break the heart of him! 
Any that has the heart and will to kill him ! 

AliSENOE. 

Take some fair truce. 

CLEOPATRA. 

I will go study mischief, 
And put a look on, arm'd with all my cunnings, 
Shall meet him like a basilisk, and strike him. 
Love ! put destroying flame into mine eyes, 
Into my smiles deceits, that I may torture him — 
That I may make him love to death, and laugh at him ! 



CLEOPATRA. 

Enter Apollodorus. 

APOLLODORUS. 

Caesar commends his service to your grace. 

CLEOPATRA. 

His service ? What 's his service ? 



Pray you be patient: 
The noble Caesar loves still. 



CLEOPATRA. 

What's his will ? 

APOLLODORUS. 

He craves access unto your highness. 

CLEOPATRA. 

No;— 
Say no ! I will have none to trouble me. 

ARSINOE. 

Good sister! — 

CLEOPATRA. 

None, I say; I will be private. 
Would thou hadst flung me into Nilus, keeper, 
When first thou gav'st consent to bring my body 
To this unthankful Caesar ! 

APOLLODORUS. 

'Twas your will, madam. 
Nay more, your charge upon me, as I honor'd you. 
You know what danger I endur'd. 



238 l' I, E O P A T R A . 

CLEOPATRA. 

Take this (giving a jewel), 
And carry it to that lordly Ceesar sent thee; 
There 's a new love, a handsome one, a rich one, — 
One that will hug his mind : bid him make love to it : 
Tell the ambitious broker this will suffer 

Enter Cesar. 

APOLLODORUS. 

He enters. 

CLEOPATRA. 

How ! 



I do not use to wait, lady ; 
Where I am, all the doors are free and open. 

CLEOPATRA. 

I guess so by your rudeness. 



i r ou"re not angry '! 
Things of your tender mould should be most gentle. 
Why should you frown? Good gods, what a set anger 
Have you forc'd into your face ? Come, I must temper you. 
What a coy smile was there, and a disdainful ! 
How like an ominous flash it broke out from you! 
Defend me, love ! Sweet, who has anger'd you ? 

CLEOPATRA. 

Show him a glass ! That false face has betray'd me — 
That base heart wrong'd me ! 

CXSAR. 

Be more sweetly angry. 



I wrong'd you, fair ? 



CLEOPATRA. 239 

CLEOPATRA. 

Away with your foul flatteries; 
They are too gross ! But that I dare he angry, 
And with as great a god as Ca;sar is, 
To show how poorly I respect his memory, 
I would not speak to you. 



Pray you, undo this riddle, 
And tell me how I 've vex'd you. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Let me think first, 
Whether I may put on a patience 
That will with honor suffer me. Know I hate you ; 
Let that begin the story. Now I'll tell you. 



But do it mildly : in a noble lady, 

Softness of spirit, and a sober nature, 

That moves like summer winds, cool, and blows sweetness, 

Shows blessed, like herself. 

CLEOPATRA. 

And that great blessedness 
You first reap'd of me; till you taught my nature, 
Like a rude storm, to talk aloud and thunder, 
Sleep was not gentler than my soul, and stiller. 
You had the spring of my affections, 
And my fair fruits I gave you leave to taste of; 
You must expect the winter of mine anger. 
You flung me off— before the court disgraoed me — 
When in the pride I appear'd of all my beauty — 
Appear'd your mistress ; took unto your eyes 
The common strumpet, love of hated lucre, — 
Courted with covetous heart the slave of nature, — 
Gave all your thoughts to gold, that men of glory, 
And minds adorn'd with noble love, would kick at! 
Soldiers of royal mark scorn such base purchase ; 
Beauty and honor are the marks they shoot at. 



.240 CLEOPATRA. 

I spake to you then, I courted you, and woo'd you 
Called you dear Caesar, hung about you tenderly, 
Was proud to appear your friend — 

CESAR. 

You have mistaken me. 

CLEOPATRA. 

But neither eye, nor favor, not a smile 

Was I blessed back withal, but shook off rudely ; 

And as you had been sold to sordid infamy, 

You fell before the images of treasure, 

And in your soul you worshipp'd. I stood slighted, 

Forgotten, and contemned : my soft embraces, 

And those sweet kisses which you call'd Elysium, 

As letters writ in sand, no more remember'd ; 

The name and glory of your Cleopatra 

Laugh'd at, and made a story to your captains ! 

Shall I endure ? 

CESAR. 

You are deceived in all this ; 
Upon my life you are ; 'tis your much tenderness. 



CLEOPATRA. 



No, no ; I love not that way ; you are cozen'd ; 
I love with as much ambition as a conqueror, 
And where I love will triumph ! 



So you shall : 
My heart shall be the chariot that shall bear you: 
All 1 have won shall wait upon you By the gods, 
The bravery of this woman's mind has fir'd me ! 
Dear mistress, shall I but this once 

CLEOPATRA. 

How! Cassar! 
Have I let slip a second vanity 
That gives thee hope ? 



CLEOPATRA. 241 

CJESAR. 

You shall be absolute, 
And reign alone as queen; you shall be anything. 

CLEOPATRA. 

Farewell, unthankful ! 

CMSAU. 

Stay! 



CLEOPATRA. 



1 will not. 



I command. 



CLEOPATRA. 



Command, and go without, sir, 

I do command thee be my slave for ever, 

And vex, while I laugh at thee ! 



Thus low, beauty \He kneels. 

CLEOPATRA. 

It is too late ; when I have found thee absolute, 

The man that fame reports thee, and to me, 

May be I shall think better. Farewell, conqueror ! {Exit.) 

Now this is magnificent poetry, but this is not Cleopatra, this is 
not " the gipsy queen." The sentiment here is too profound, the 
majesty too real, and too lofty. Cleopatra could be great by fits 
and starts, but never sustained her dignity upon so high a tone for 
ten minutes together. The Cleopatra of Fletcher reminds us of the 
antique colossal statue of her in the Vatican, all grandeur and grace 
Cleopatra in Dryden's tragedy is like Guido's dying Cleopatra in the 
Pitti palace, tenderly beautiful. Shakspeare's Cleopatra is like one 
31 



242 CLEOPATRA. 

of those graceful and fantastic pieces of antique Arabesque, in whicn 
all anomalous shapes and impossible and wild combinations of form 
are woven together in regular confusion and most harmonious- 
discord : and such, we have reason to believe, was the living woman 
herself, when she existed upon this earth 



C T A V I A 



I r>o not understand the observation of a late critic, that in 
this play " Octavia is only a dull foil to Cleopatra." Cleopatra 
requires no foil, and Octavia is not dull, though, in a moment of 
jealous spleen, her accomplished rival gives her that epithet.* It is 
possible that her beautiful character, if brought more forward and 
colored up to the historic* portrait, would still be eclipsed by the 
dazzling splendor of Cleopatra's; for so I have seen a flight of 
fireworks blot out for a while the silver moon and ever burning 
stars. But here the subject of the drama being the love of Antony 
and Cleopatra, Octavia is very properly kept in the back ground, 
and far from any competition with her rival: the interest would 
otherwise have been unpleasantly divided, or rather Cleopatra herself 
must have served but as a foil to the tender, virtuous, dignified, and 
generous Octavia, the very beau ideal of a noble Roman lady : — 

Admired Octavia, whose beauty claims 
No worse a husband than the best of men ; 
Whose virtue and whose general graces speak 
That which none else can utter. 

Dryden has committed a great mistake in bringing Octavia and 
her children on the scene, and in immediate contact with Cleopatra. 



r The eober eye of dull Octavia. " — Act v., scene 2. 



244 O C T A V I A . 

To have thus violated the truth of history* might have been 
excusable, but to sacrifice the truth of nature and dramatic propriety, 
^o produce a mere stage effect, was unpardonable. In order to 
preserve the unity of interest, he has falsified the character of 
Octavia as well as that of Cleopatra : f he has presented us with a 
regular scolding match between the rivals, in which they come 
sweeping up to each other from opposite sides of the stage, with 
their respective trains, like two pea-hens in a passion. Shakspeare 
would no more have brought his captivating, brilliant, but meretricious 
Cleopatra into immediate comparison with the noble and chaste 
simplicity of Octavia, than a connoisseur in art would have placed 
Canova's Dansatrice, beautiful as it is, beside the Athenian 
Melpomene, or the Vestal of the Capitol. 

The character of Octavia is merely indicated in a few touches, but 
every stroke tells. We see her with " downcast eyes sedate and 
sweet, and looks demure," — with her modest tenderness and dignified 
submission — the very antipodes of her rival ! Nor should we forget 
that she has furnished one of the most graceful similes in the whole 
compass of poetry, where her soft equanimity in the midst of grief 
is compared to 

The swan's down feather 
That stands upon the swell at flood of tide, 
And neither way inclines. 

The fear which seems to haunt the mind of Cleopatra, lest she 
should be "chastised by the sober eye" of Octavia, is exceedingly 



* Octavia was never in Egypt. 

f " The Octavia of Dryden is a much more important personage than in the 
Antony and Cleopatra of Shakspeare. She is, however, more cold and unamiable, 
for in the very short scenes in which the Octavia of Shakspeare is introduced, she 
is placed in rather an interesting point of view. But Dryden has himself informed 
us that he was apprehensive that the justice of a wife's claim would draw the 
audience to her side, and lessen their interest in the lover and the mistress. He 
seems accordingly to have studiously lowered the character of the injured Octavia, 
who, in her conduct to her husband, shows much duty and little love. " Sir W. 
Scott (in the same fine piece of criticism prefixed to Dryden's All for Love) gives 
the preference to Shakspeare's Cleopatra. 



O C T A VIA. 245 

characteristic of the two women : it betrays the jealous pride of 
her, who was conscious that she had forfeited all real claim tc 
respect; and it places Octavia before us in all the majesty of that 
virtue which could strike a kind of envying and remorseful awe even 
into the bosom of Cleopatra. What would she have thought and 
felt, had some soothsayer foretold to her the fate of her own children, 
whom she so tenderly loved ? Captives, and exposed to the rage of 
the Roman populace, they owed their existence to the generous, 
admirable Octavia, in whose mind there entered no particle of 
littleness. She received into her house the children of Antony and 
Cleopatra, educated them with her own, treated them with truly 
maternal tenderness, and married them nobly. 

Lastly, to complete the contrast, the death of Octavia should be 
put in comparison with that of Cleopatra 

After spending several years in dignified retirement, respected as 
the sister of Augustus, but more for her own virtues, Octavia lost 
her eldest son Marcellus, who was expressively called the " Hope of 
Rome." Her fortitude gave way under this blow, and she fell into 
a deep melancholy, which gradually wasted her health. While she 
was thus declining into death, occurred that beautiful scene, which 
has never yet, I believe, been made the subject of a picture, but 
should certainly be added to my gallery (if I had one), and I would 
hang it opposite to the dying Cleopatra. Virgil was commanded by 
Augustus to read aloud to his sister, that book of the Eneid in which 
he had commemorated the virtues and early death of the young 
Marcellus. When he came to the lines — 



This youth, the blissful vision of a day, 

Shall just be shown on earth, then snatched away, &c. 



the mother covered her face, and burst into tears. But when Virgil 
mentioned her son by name ("Tu Marcellus eris"), which he had 
artfully deferred till the concluding lines, Octavia, unable to control 
her agitation, fainted away. She afterwards, with a magnificent 
spirit, ordered the poet a gratuity of ten thousand sesterces for each 



246 OCTAVIA. 

line of the panegyric* It is probable that the agitation she suffered 
on this occasion hastened the effects of her disorder ; for she died 
soon after (of grief, says the historian), having survived Antony 
about twenty years. 

* In all, about two thousand pounds 



V L TT M N I A . 



Octavia, however, is only a beautiful sketch, while in Volumnia, 
Shakspeare has given us the portrait of a Roman matron, conceived 
in the true antique spirit, and finished in every part. Although 
Coriolanus is the hero of the play, yet much of the interest of 
the action and the final catastrophe turn upon the character of 
his mother, Volumnia, and the power she exercised over his mind, 
by which, according to the story, " she saved Rome and lost her 
son. " Her lofty patriotism, her patrician haughtiness, her maternal 
pride, her eloquence, and her towering spirit, are exhibited with 
the utmost power of effect ; yet the truth of female nature is 
beautifully preserved, and the portrait, with all its vigor, is without 
harshness. 

I shall begin by illustrating the relative position and feelings of 
the mother and son ; as these are of the greatest importance in 
the action of the drama, and consequently most prominent in the 
characters. Though Volumnia is a Roman matron, and though 
her country owes its salvation to her, it is clear that her maternal 
pride and affection are stronger even than her patriotism. Thus 
when her son is exiled, ohe bursts into an imprecation against 
Rome and its citizens : — 



Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, 
And occupations perish ! 



248 VOLUMN1A. 

Here we have the impulses of individual and feminine nature, 
overpowering all national and habitual influences. Volumnia would 
never have exclaimed like the Spartan mother, of her dead son, 
"Sparta has many others as brave as he;" but in a far different 
spirit she says to the Romans, — 



Ere you go, hear tliia ; 
As far as doth the Capitol exceed 
The meanest house in Rome, so far my son, 
Whom you have banished, does exceed you all. 



In the very first scene, and before the introduction of the 
principal personages, one citizen observes to another, that the 
military exploits of Marcius were performed, not so much for his 
country's sake " as to please his mother. " By this admirable stroke 
of art, introduced with such simplicity of effect, our attention is 
aroused, and we are prepared in the very outset of the piece for the 
important part assigned to Volumnia, and for her share in producing 
the catastrophe. 

In the first act we have a very graceful scene, in which the two 
Roman ladies, the wife and mother of Coriolanus, are discovered 
at their needle-work, conversing on his absence and danger, and are 
visited by Valeria: — 



The noble sister of Publicola, 
The moon of Rome ; chaste as the icicle, 
That's curded by the frost from purest snow, 
And hangs on Dian's temple ! 



Over this little scene Shakspeare, without any display of learning, 
has breathed the very spirit of classical antiquity. The haughty 
temper of Volumnia, her admiration of the valor and high bearing of 
her son, and her proud but unselfish love for him, are finely contrasted 
with the modest sweetness, the conjugal tenderness, and the fond 
solicitude of his wife Virgilia. 



VOLUMNIA. 249 



When ye"i he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb; when 
youth with comeliness pluck'd all gaze his way ; when, for a day of kings' 
entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour from her beholding ; I, — 
considering how honor would bpcome such a person; that it was no better 
than picture-like to hang by the wall, if renown made it not stir, — was pleased 
to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war I 
sent him, from whence he returned, his brows bound with oak. I tell chee, 
daughter — I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child, than 
now in first seeing he had proved himself a man. 

VIKGILIA. 

But had he died in the business, madam 1 how then ? 



Then his good report should have been my son ; I therein would have 
found issue. Here me profess sincerely : had I a dozen sons, each in my love 
alike, and none less dear than thine and my good Marcius, I had rather had 
eleven die nobly for their country, than one voluptuously surfeit out of action. 

Enter a Gentlewoman. 
Madam, the lady Valeria is come to visit you. 

VIRGILIA. 

Beseech you, give me leave to retire myself. 

VOLTJMNIA. 

Indeed you shall not. 

Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum : 

See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair : 

As children from a bear, the Voices shunning him; 

Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus — 

" Come on, you cowards ! you were got in fear, 

Though you were born in Rome." His bloody brow 

With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes ; 

Like to a harvest-man, that 's task'd to mow 

Or all, or lose his hire. 



His bloody brow ! O Jupiter, no blood ! 
32 



250 V O L U M N I A . 

VOLUMNIA. 

Away, you fool ! it more becomes a man 

Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba, 

When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier 

Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood 

At Grecian swords contending. Tell Valeria 

We are fit to bid her welcome. [Exit GenJ 

VIRGILIA. 

Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidias 



He'll beat AufiJius's head below his knee, 
And tread upon his neck ! 

This distinction between the two females is as interesting and 
beautiful as it is well sustained. Thus when the victory of 
Coriolanus is proclaimed, Menenius asks, " Is he wounded ?" 

V1KGILIA. 

O no, no, no! 

VOLtTMNIA. 

Yes, he is wounded — I thank the gods for it ! 

And when he returns victorious from the wars, his high-spirited 
mother receives him with blessings and applause — his gentle wife 
with " gracious silence " and with tears. 

The resemblance of temper in the mother and the son, modified 
as it is by the difference of sex, and by her greater age and 
experience, is exhibited with admirable truth. Volumnia, with all 
her pride and spirit, has some prudence and self-command; in her 
language and deportment all is matured and matronly. The dignified 
tone of authority she assumes towards her son, when checking his 
headlong impetuosity, her respect and admiration for his noble 
? qualities, and her strong sympathy even with the feelings she 
; combats, are all displayed in the scene in which she prevails on 
him to soothe the incensed plebeians. 



V O L U M N I A . 251 



VOLUMNIA. 

Pray be counsell'd : 
I have a heart as little apt as yours, 
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger 
To better vantage. 

MENENITJS. 

Well said, noble woman : 
Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but that 
The violent fit o' the time craves it as physic 
For the whole state, I would put mine armor on 
Which I can scarcely bear. 

COKIOLANT/S. 

What must I do? 

MENENTUS. 

Return to the tribunes. 

COEIOLANUS. 

Well. 
What then? what then? 

MENENIUS. 

Repent what you have spoken. 

CORIOLANT/S. 

For them ? I cannot do it to the gods : 
Must I then do 't to them ? 



You are too absolute ; 
Though therein you can never be too noble, 
But when extremities speak. 

I pr'ythee now, my son, 
Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand ; 
And thus far having stretch 'd it (here be with them), 



252 VOLUMNIA. 

Thy knee bussing the stones (for in such business 
Action is eloquent, and the eyes of the ignorant 
More learned than the ears), waving thy head, 
Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart, 
Now humble, as the ripest mulberry, 
That will not hold the handling. Or, say to them, 
Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils 
Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess, 
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim, 
In asking their good loves ; but thou wilt frame 
Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far 
As 'thou hast power and person. 

MENEMUS. 

This but done, 
Even as she speaks, why all their hearts were yours; 
For they have pardons, being asked, as free 
As words to little purpose. 



Pr'ythee now, 
Go, and be rnl'd : although I know thou hadst rather 
Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf 
Than flatter him in a bower. 

MENENIUS. 

Only fair speech. 



I think 'twill serve, if he 
Can thereto frame his spirit. 

VOLTJMNIA. 

He must, and will : 
Pr'ythee, now say you will, and go about it. 

COKIOLANUS. 

Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce ? Must J 
With my base tongue give to my noble heart 
A lie, that it must bear ? Well, I will do 't ; 



V O L U M N I A . 253 

Yet were there but this single plot to lose, 
This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it, 
And throw it against the wind. To the market-place! 
You have put me now to such a part, which never 
I shall discharge to the life. 



I pr'ythee now, sweet son, as thou hast said, 
My praises made thee first a soldier, so 
To have my praise for this, perform a part 
Thou hast not done before. 

COKIOLANUS. 

Well, I must do 't ; 
Away, my disposition, and possess me 
Some harlot's spirit ! 

****** 

I will not do 't : 
Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth, 
And, by my body's action, teach my mind 
A most inherent baseness. 

VOLUMNIA. 

At thy choice, then : 
To beg of thee, it is my more dishonor, 
Than thou of them. Come all to ruin : let 
Thy mother rather feel thy pride, than fear 
Thy dangerous stoutness : for I mock at death 
With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list — 
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me ; 
But owe thy pride thyself. 

CORIOLANTJS. 

Pray be content ; 
Mother, I am going to the market-place — 
Chide me no more. 

"When the spirit of the mother and the son are brought into 
immediate collision, he yields before her; the -warrior who stemmed 



254 VOLDMNIA. 

alone the whole city of Corioli, who was ready to face "the steep 
Tarpeian death, or at wild horses' heels, — vagabond exile — flaying " 
rather than abate one jot of his proud will — shrinks at her rebuke. 
The haughty, fiery, overbearing temperament of Coriolanus, is 
drawn in such forcible and striking colors, that nothing can more 
impress us with the real grandeur and power of Volumnia's 
character, than his boundless submission to her will — his more than 
filial tenderness and respect. 

You gods ! I prate, 
And the most noble mother of the world 
Leave unsaluted. Sink my knee i' the earth — 
Of thy deep duty more impression show 
Than that of common sons! 

When his mother appears before him as a suppliant, he 
exclaims, — 

My mother bows ; 

As if Olympus to a molehill should 

In supplication nod. 

Here the expression of reverence, and the magnificent image in 
which it is clothed, are equally characteristic both of the mother 
and the son. 

Her aristocratic haughtiness is a strong trait in Volumnia's 
manner and character, and her supreme contempt for the plebeians, 
whether they are to be defied or cajoled, is very like what 1 
have heard expressed by some high-born and high-bred women of 
our own day. 

I muse my mother 
Does not approve me further, who was wont 
To call them woollen vassals ; things created 
To buy and sell with groats ; to show bare heads 
In congregations ; to yawn, he still, and wonder, 
When one but of iry ordinance stood up 
To speak of peace or war. 



VOLUMNIA. 256 

And Volumnia reproaching the tribunes, — 

'Twas you incensed the rabble — 
Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth, 
As I can of those mysteries which Heaven 
Will not have earth to know. 

There is all the Roman spirit in her exultation, when the trumpets 
sound the return of Coriolanus. 

Hark ! the trumpets ! 
These are the ushers of Marcius : before him 
He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears. 

And in her speech to the gentle Virgilia, who is weeping her 
husband's banishment — 

Leave this faint puling! and lament as I do, 
In anger — Juno-like ! 

But the triumph of Volumnia's character, the full display of ah 
her grandeur of soul, her patriotism, her strong affections, and her 
sublime eloquence, are reserved for her last scene, in which she 
pleads for the safety of Rome, and wins from her angry son that 
peace which all the swords of Italy and her confederate arms could 
not have purchased. The strict and even literal adherence to the 
truth of history is an additional beauty. 

Her famous speech, beginning " Should we be silent and not 
speak," is nearly word for word from Plutarch, with some additional 
graces of expression, and the charm of metre superadded. I shall 
give the last lines of this address, as illustrating that noble and 
irresistible eloquence which was the crowning ornament of the 
character One exquisite touch of nature, which is distinguished 
by italics, was beyond the rhetorician and historian, and belongs 
only to the poet. 

Speak to me, son ; 
Thou hast affected the fine strains of honor, 



VOLUMNIA. 

To imitate the graces of the gods ; 
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air, 
And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt 
That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak? 
Think'st thou it honorable for a noble man 
Still to remember wrongs ? Daughter, speak you : 
He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy ; 
Perhaps thy childishness may move him more 
Than can our reasons. There is no man in the world 
More bound to his mother ; yet here he lets me prate 
Like one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy ,'ife 
Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy ; 
When she ( poor hen), fond of no second brood, 
Has clucked thee to die wars, and safely home, 
Laden with honor. Say my request's unjust, 
And spurn me back : but, if it be not so, 
Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague thee 
That thou restrain'st from me the duty which 
To a mother's part belongs. He turns away : 
Down, ladies: let us shame him with our knees. 
To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride, 
Than pity to our prayers ; down, and end ; 
This is the last ; so will we home to Rome, 
And die among our neighbors. Nay, behold us ; 
This boy, that cannot tell what he would have, 
But kneels, and holds up hands, for fellowship, 
Does reason our petition with more strength 
Than thou hast to deny 't.* 



•The corresponding passage in the old English Plutarch runs thus: — "My son, 
why dost thou not answer me .' Dost thou think it good altogether to give place 
unto thy clioler and revenge, and thinkest thou it not honesty for thee to grant thy 
mother's request in so weighty a cause ? Dost thou take it honorable for a 
nobleman to remember the wrongs and injuries done him, and dost not in like case 
think it an honest nobleman's part to be thankful for the goodness that parents do 
show to their children, acknowledging the duty and reverence they ought to bear unto 
them .' No man living is more bound to show himself thankful in all parts and 
respects than thyself, who so universally showest all ingratitude. Moreover, my 
eon, thou hast sorely taken of thy country, exacting grievous payments upon them 
in revenge of the injuries offered thee ; besides, thou hast- not hitherto showed thy 
poor mother any courtesy. And, therefore, it is not only honest, but due unto me, 
that without compulsion I should obtain my so just and reasonable request of thee 



VOLUMNIA. 257 

It is an instance of Shakspeare's fine judgment, that after this 
magnificent and touching piece of eloquence, which saved Rome. 
Volumnia should speak no more, for she could say nothing that 
would not deteriorate from the effect thus left on the imagination. 
She is at last dismissed from our admiring ga?e amid the thunder of 
grateful acclamations — 

Behold our patroness, — the life of Rome. 



But since by reason I cannot persuade ye to it, to what purpose do I defer my last 
hope .' " And with these words, herself, his wife, and children, fell down upon 
their knees before him. 



CONSTANCE. 



We have seen that in the mother of Coriolanus, the principal 
qualities are exceeding pride, self-will, strong maternal affection ; 
great power of imagination, and energy of temper. Precisely the 
same qualities enter into the mind of Constance of Bretagne : but 
in her these qualities are so differently modified by circumstances 
and education, that not even in fancy do we think of instituting a 
comparison between the gothic grandeur of Constance, and the more 
severe and classical dignity of the Roman matron. 

The scenes and circumstances with which Shakspeare has surrounded 
Constance are strictly faithful to the old chronicles, and are as 
vividly as they are accurately represented. On the other hand, the 
hints on which the character has been constructed are few and 
vague; but the portrait harmonizes so wonderfully with its historic 
back-ground, and with all that later researches have discovered 
relative to the personal adventures of Constance, that I have not the 
slightest doubt of its individual truth. The result of a life of 
strange vicissitude; the picture of a tameless will, and high passions, 
for ever struggling in vain against a superior power : and the real 
situation of women in those chivalrous times, are placed before us 
in a few noble scenes. The manner in which Shakspeare has applied 
the scattered hints of history to the formation of the character, 
reminds us of that magician who collected the mangled limbs which 
had been dispersed up and down, re-united them into the human 



260 CONSTANCE. 

form, and re-animated them with the breathing and conscious spirit 
of life. 

Constance of Bretagne was the only daughter and heiress of 
Conan IV., Duke of Bretagne ; her mother was Margaret of Scotland, 
the eldest daughter of Malcolm IV. : but little mention is made of 
this princess in the old histories; but she appears to have inherited 
some portion of the talent and spirit of her father, and to have 
transmitted them to her daughter. The misfortunes of Constance 
may be said to have commenced before her birth, and took their rise 
in the misconduct of one of her female ancestors. Her great- 
grandmother Matilda, the wife of Conan III., was distinguished by 
her beauty and imperious temper, and not less by her gallantries. 
Her husband, not thinking proper to repudiate her during his 
lifetime, contented himself with disinheriting her son Hoel, whom he 
declared illegitimate; and bequeathed his dukedom to his daughter 
Bertha, and her husband Allan the Black, Earl of Richmond, who 
were proclaimed and acknowledged Duke and Duchess of Bretagne. 

Prince Hoel, so far from acquiescing in his father's will, immediately 
levied an army to maintain his rights, and a civil war ensued 
between the brother and sister, which lasted for twelve or fourteen 
years. Bertha, whose reputation was not much fairer than that of 
her mother Matilda, was succeeded by her son Conan IV. ; he was 
young, and of a feeble, vacillating temper, and after struggling for 
a few years against the increasing power of his uncle Hoel, and 
his own rebellious barons, he called in the aid of that politic and 
ambitious monarch, Henry II. of England. This fatal step decided 
the fate of his crown and his posterity ; from the moment the English 
set foot in Bretagne, that miserable country became a scene of 
horrors and crimes — oppression and perfidy on the one hand, 
unavailing struggles on the other. Ten years of civil discord ensued, 
during which the greatest part of Bretagne was desolated, and 
nearly a third of the population carried off by famine and 
pestilence. In the end, Conan was secured in the possession of 
his throne by the assistance of the English king, who, equally subtle 
and ambitious, contrived in the course of this warfare to strip Conan 
of most of his provinces by successive treaties; alienate the Breton 



CONSTANCE. 261 

nobles from their lawful sovereign, and at length render the Duke 
himself the mere vassal of his power. 

In the midst of these scenes of turbulence and bloodshed was 
Constance born, in the year 1164. The English king consummated 
his perfidious scheme of policy, by seizing on the person of the 
infant princess, before she was three years old, as a hostage for her 
father. Afterwards, by contracting her in marriage to his third son, 
Geoffrey Plantagenet, he ensured, as he thought, the possession of 
the duchy of Bretagne to his own posterity. 

From this time we hear no more of the weak, unhappy Conan, 
who, retiring from a fruitless contest, hid himself in some obscure 
retreat : even the date of his death is unknown. Meanwhile Henry 
openly claimed the duchy in behalf of his son Geoffrey and the 
Lady Constance ; and their claims not being immediately acknowledged 
he invaded Bretagne with a large army, laid waste the country, 
bribed or forced some of the barons into submission, murdered or 
imprisoned others, and, by the most treacherous and barbarous policy, 
contrived to keep possession of the country he had thus seized. 
However, in order to satisfy the Bretons, who were attached to the 
race of their ancient sovereigns, and to give some color to his 
usurpation, he caused Geoffrey and Constance to be solemnly 
crowned at Rennes, as Duke and Duchess of Bretagne.. This was in 
the yeaT 1169, when Constance was five, and Prince Geoffrey about 
eight, years old. His father, Henry, continued to rule, or rather to 
ravage and oppress, the country in their name for about fourteen 
years, during which period we do not hear of Constance. She 
appears to have been kept in a species of constraint as a hostage 
rather than a sovereign ; while her husband Geoffrey, as he grew up 
to manhood, was too much engaged in keeping the Bretons in order, 
and disputing his rights with his father, to think about the completion 
of his union with Constance, although his sole title to the dukedom 
was properly and legally in right of his wife. At length, in 1182, 
the nuptials were formally celebrated, Constance being then in her 
nineteenth year At the same time, she was recognized as Duchess 
of Bretagne de son chef (that is, in her own right), by two acts of 
legislation, which are still preserved among the records of Bretagne, 
and bear her own seal and signature. 



262 CONSTANCE. 

Those domestic feuds which embittered the whole life of Henry 
II., and at length broke his heart, are well known. Of all his sons, 
who were in continual rebellion against him, Geoffrey was the most 
undutiful, and the most formidable: he had all the pride of the 
Plantagenets, — all the warlike accomplishments of his two elder 
brothers, Henry and Richard ; and was the only one who could 
compete with his father, in talent, eloquence, and dissimulation. 
No sooner was he the husband of Constance, and in possession 
of the throne of Bretagne, than he openly opposed his father : 
in other words, he maintained the honor and interests of his wife 
and her unhappy country against the cruelties and oppression of 
the English plunderers. * About three years after his marriage, he 
was invited to Paris for the purpose of concluding a league, 
offensive and defensive, with the French king; in this journey he 
was accompanied by the Duchess Constance, and they were 
received and entertained with royal magnificence. Geoffrey, who 
excelled in all chivalrous accomplishments, distinguished himself in 
the tournaments which were celebrated on the occasion ; but 
unfortunately, after an encounter with a French knight, celebrated 
for his prowess, he was accidentally flung from his horse, and 
trampled to death in the lists before he could be extricated. 

Constance being now left a widow, returned to Bretagne, where 
her barons rallied round her and acknowledged her as their sovereign. 
The Salique law did not prevail in Bretagne, and it appears that 
in those times the power of a female to possess and transmit the 
rights of sovereignty had been recognized in several instances ; but 
Constance is the first woman who exercised those rights in her 
own person. She had one daughter, Elinor, born in the second 
year of her marriage, and a few months after her husband's death 
she gave birth to a son. The states of Bretagne were filled with 
exultation ; they required that the infant prince should not bear 
the name of his father, — a name w T hich Constance, in fond 
remembrance of her husband, would have bestowed on him — still 
less that of his grandfather Henry ; but that of Arthur, the 
redoubted hero of their country, whose memory was worshipped 

* Vide Daru, Histoire de Bretagne 



CONSTANCE. 263 

by the populace. Though the Arthur of romantic and fairy 
legends — the Arthur of the round table, had been dead for six 
centuries, they still looked for his second appearance anions them, 
according to the prophecy of Merlin; and now, with fond and 
short-sighted enthusiasm, fixed their hopes on the young Arthur as 
one destined to redeem the glory and independence of their 
oppressed and miserable country. But in the very midst of the 
rejoicings which succeeded the birth of the prince, his grandfather, 
Henry II. , demanded to have the possession and guardianship of 
his person ; and on the spirited refusal of Constance to yield her 
son into his power, he invaded Bretagne with a large army ; 
plundering, burning, devastating the country as he advanced, he 
seized Rennes, the capital: and having, by the basest treachery, 
obtained possession of the persons both of the young duchess 
and her children, he married Constance forcibly to one of his own 
favorite adherents, Randal de Blondeville, Earl of Chester, and 
conferred on him the duchy of Bretagne, to be held as a fief 
of the English crown. 

The Earl of Chester, though a brave knight, and one of the 
greatest barons of England, had no pretensions to so high an 
alliance ; nor did he possess any qualities or personal accomplishments 
which might have reconciled Constance to him as a husband. He 
was a man of diminutive stature and" mean appearance, but of 
haughty and ferocious manners, and unbounded ambition. * In a 
conference between the Earl of Chester and the Earl of Perche, 
in Lincoln cathedral, the latter taunted Randal with his insignificant 
person, and called him contemptuously "Dwarf." " Sayst thou 
so ! " replied Randal ; " I vow to God and our Lady, whose church 
this is, that ere long I will seem to thee high as that steeple ! " 
He was as good as his word, when, on ascending the throne of 
Brittany, the Earl of Perche became his vassal. 

"We cannot know what measures were used to force this 
degradation on the reluctant and high-spirited Constance; it is 
only certain that she never considered her marriage in the light 
of a sacred obligation, and that she took the first opportunity of 

• Vide Sir Peter Leycester's Antiquities of Chester 



264 C N S T A N C E . 

legally breaking from a chain which could scarcely be considered 
as legally binding. For about a year she was obliged to allow 
this detested husband the title of Duke of Bretagne, and he 
administered the government without the slightest reference to her 
will, even in form, till 11S9, when Henry II. died, execrating 
himself and his undutiful children. Whatever great and good 
qualities this monarch may have possessed, his conduct in Bretagne 
was uniformly detestable. Even the unfilial behavior of his sons 
may be extenuated ; for while he spent his life, and sacrificed 
his peace, and violated every principle of honor and humanity 
to compass their political aggrandizement, he was guilty of atrocious 
injustice towards them, and set them a bad example in his own 
person. 

The tidings of Henry's death had no sooner reached Bretagne than 
the barons of that country rose with one accord against his govern- 
ment, banished or massacred his officers, and, sanctioned by the 
Duchess Constance, drove Randal de Blondeville and his followers 
from Bretagne; he retired to his earldom of Chester, there to brood 
over his injuries, and meditate vengeance. 

In the meantime, Richard I. ascended the English throne. Soon 
afterwards he embarked on his celebrated expedition to the Holy 
Land, having previously declared Prince Arthur, the only son of 
Constance, heir to all his dominions.* 

His absence, and that of many of her own turbulent barons and 
encroaching neighbors, left to Constance and her harassed dominions 
a short interval of profound peace. The historians of that period, 
occupied by the warlike exploits of the French and English kings in 
Palestine, make but little mention of the domestic events of Europe 
during their absence ; but it is no slight encomium on the character 
of Constance, that Bretagne flourished under her government, and 
began to recover from tire effects of twenty years of desolating war. 
The seven years during which she ruled as an independent sovereign, 
were not marked by any events of importance ; but in the year 1196 
she caused her son Arthur, then nine years of age, to be acknow- 



' By the treaty of Messina, 1190. 



CONSTANCE. 265 

ledged Duke of Bretagne by the States, and associated him with 
herself in all the acts of government. 

There was more of maternal tondncss than policy in this measure, 
and it cost her dear. Richard, that royal firebrand, had now returned 
to England: by the intrigues and representations of Earl Randal, his 
attention was turned to Bretagne. He expressed extreme indignation 
that Constance should have proclaimed her son Duke of Bretagne 
and her partner in power, without his consent, he being the feudal lord 
and natural guardian of the young prince. After some excuses and 
representations on the part of Constance, he affected to be pacified, 
and a friendly interview was appointed at Pontorson, on the frontiers 
of Normandy. 

We can hardly reconcile the cruel and perfidious scenes which 
follow with those romantic and chivalrous associations which illustrate 
the memory of Cceur-de-Lion — the friend of Blonde!, and the 
antagonist of Saladin. Constance, perfectly unsuspicious of the 
meditated treason, accepted the invitation of her brother-in-law, and 
set out from Rennes, with a small but magnificent retinue, to join 
him at Pontorson. On the road, and within sight of the town, the 
Earl of Chester was posted with a troop of Richard's soldiery, and 
while the Duchess prepared to enter the gates, where she expected 
to be received with honor and welcome, he suddenly rushed from his 
ambuscade, fell upon her and her suite, put the latter to flight, and 
carried off Constance to the strong Castle of St. Jaques de Beuvron, 
where he detained her a prisoner for eighteen months. The chronicle 
does not tell us how Randal treated his unfortunate wife during this 
long imprisonment. She was absolutely in his power ; none of her 
own people were suffered to approach her, and whatever might have 
been his behavior towards her, one thing alone is certain, that so far 
from softening her feelings towards him, it seems to have added 
tenfold bitterness to her abhorrence and her scorn. 

The barons of Bretagne sent the Bishop of Rennes to complain 
of this violation of faith and justice, and to demand the restitution 
of the Duchess. Richard meanly evaded and temporized : he engaged 
to restore Constance to liberty on certain conditions ; but this was 
merely to gain time. When the stipulated terms were complied with, 
and the hostages delivered, the Bretons sent a herald to the English 
34 



266 CONSTANCE. 

king, to require him to fulfil his part of the treaty, and restore their 
beloved Constance. Richard replied with insolent defiance, refused to 
deliver up either the hostages or Constance, and marched his army 
into the heart of the country. 

All that Bretagne had suffered previously was as nothing compared 
to this terrible invasion ; and all that the humane and peaceful 
government of Constance had effected during seven years was at once 
annihilated. The English barons and their savage and mercenary 
followers spread themselves through the country, which they wasted 
with fire and sword. The castles of those who ventured to defend 
themselves were razed to the ground ; the towns and villages 
plundered and burnt, and the wretched inhabitants fled to. the caves 
and forests ; but not even there could they find an asylum ; by the 
orders, and in the presence of Richard, the woods were set on fire, 
and hundreds either perished in the flames, or were suffocated in the 
smoke. 

Constance, meanwhile, could only weep in her captivity over the 
miseries of her country, and tremble with all a mother's fears for the 
safety of her son. She had placed Arthur under the care of William 
Desroches, the seneschal of her palace, a man of mature age, of 
approved valor, and devotedly attached to her family. This 
faithful servant threw himself, with his young charge, into the 
fortress of Brest, where he for some time defied the power of the 
English King. 

But notwithstanding the brave resistance of the nobles and people 
of Bretagne, they were obliged to submit to the conditions imposed 
by Richard By a treaty concluded in 1198, of which the terms are 
not exactly known, Constance was delivered from her captivity, 
though not from her husband ; but in the following year, when the 
death of Richard had restored her to some degree of independence, 
the first use she made of it was to divorce herself from Randal. 
She took this step with her usual precipitancy, not waiting for the 
sanction of the Pope, as was the custom in those days; and soon 
afterwards she gave her hand to Guy, Count de Thouars, a man of 
courage and integrity, who for some time maintained the cause of 
his wife and her son against the power of England. Arthur was 
now fourteen, and the legitimate heir of all the dominions of his 



CONSTANCE. o 67 

uncle Richard. Constance placed him under the guardianship of the 
king of France, who knighted the young prince with his own hand, 
and solemnly swore to defend his rights against his usurping uncle John. 

It is at this moment that the play of King John opens ; and 
history is followed as closely as the dramatic form would allow, to 
the death of John. The real fate of poor Arthur, after he had been 
abandoned by the French, and had fallen into the hands of his uncle, 
is now ascertained; but according to the chronicle from which 
Shakspeare drew his materials, he was killed in attempting to escape 
from the castle of Falaise. Constance did not live to witness this 
consummation of her calamities ; within a few months after Arthur 
was taken prisoner, in 1201, she died suddenly, before she had 
attained her thirty-ninth year; but the cause of her death is not 
specified. 

Her eldest daughter Elinor, the legitimate heiress of England, 
Normandy, and Bretagne, died in captivity; having been kept a 
prisoner in Bristol Castle from the age of fifteen. She was at that 
time so beautiful, that she was called proverbially, " La belle 
Bretonne," and by the English the "Fair Maid of Brittany." She, 
like her brother Arthur, was sacrificed to the ambition of her uncles. 
Of the two daughters of Constance by Guy de Thouars, the eldest, 
Alice, became Duchess of Bretagne, and married the Count de Dreux, 
of the royal blood of France. The sovereignty of Bretagne was 
transmitted through her descendants in an uninterrupted line, till, by 
the marriage of the celebrated Anne de Bretagne with Charles VDJ. 
of France, her dominions were for ever united with the French 
monarchy. 

In considering the real history of Constance, three things must 
strike us as chiefly remarkable. 

First, that she is not accused of any vice, or any act of 
injustice or violence; and this praise, though poor and negative, 
should have its due weight, considering the scanty records that 
remain of her troubled life, and the period at which she lived — 
a period in which crimes of the darkest dye were familiar 
occurrences. Her father, Conan, was considered as a gentle and 
amiable prince — " gentle even to feebleness ; " yet we are told 
that on one occasion he acted over again the tragedy of Ugolino 



268 CONSTANCE. 

and Ruggiero, when he shut up the Count de Dol, with his two 
sons and his nephew, in a dungeon, and deliberately starved them 
to death ; an event recorded without any particular comment by the 
old chroniclers of Bretagne. It also appears that, during those 
intervals when Constance administered the government of her states 
with some degree of independence, the country prospered under her 
sway, and that she possessed at all times the love of her people 
and the respect of her nobles. 

Secondly, no imputation whatever has been cast on the honor of 
Constance as a wife and as a woman. The old historians, who 
have treated in a very unceremonious style the levities of her 
great-grandmother Matilda, her grandmother Bertha, her godmother 
Constance, and her mother-in-law Elinor, treat the name and memory 
of our Lady Constance with uniform respect. 

Her third marriage, with Guy de Thouars, has been censured as 
impolitic, but has also been defended ; it can hardly, considering 
her age, and the circumstances in which she was placed, be a 
just subject of reproach. During her hated union with Randal de 
Blondeville, and the years passed in a species of widowhood, she 
conducted herself with propriety: at least I can find no reason to 
judge otherwise. 

Lastly, we are struck by the fearless, determined spirit, amounting 
at times to rashness, which Constance displayed on several 
occasions, when left to the free exercise of her own power and 
will ; yet we see how frequently, with all this resolution and pride 
of temper, she became a mere instrument in the hands of others, 
and a victim to the superior craft or power of her enemies. The 
inference is unavoidable; there must have existed in the mind of 
Constance, with all her noble and amiable qualities, a deficiency 
somewhere, a want of firmness, a want of judgment or wariness, 
and a total want of self-control. 

******** 

In the play of King John, the three principal characters are the 
King, Falconbridge, and Lady Constance. The first is drawn forcibly 
and accurately from history : it reminds us of Titian's portrait of 
Caesar Borgia, in which the hatefulness of the subject is redeemed 
by the masterly skill of the artist, — the truth, and power, and 



CONSTANCE. 269 

wonderful beauty of the execution. Falconbridge is the spirited 
creation of the poet.* Constance is certainly an historical 
personage; but the form which, when we meet it on the record 
of history, appears like a pale indistinct shadow, half melted into 
its obscure back-ground, starts before us into a strange relief and 
palpable breathing reality upon the page of Shakspeare. 

Whenever we think of Constance, it is in her maternal character. 
All the interest which she excites in the drama turns upon her 
situation as the mother of Arthur. Every circumstance in which 
she is placed, every sentiment she utters, has a reference to him ; 
and she is represented through the whole of the scenes in which 
she is engaged, as alternately pleading for the rights, and trembling 
for the existence of her son. 

The same may be said of the Merope. In the four tragedies 
of which -her story forms the subject,! we see her but in one 
point of view, namely, as a mere impersonation of the maternal 
feeling. The poetry of the situation is everything, the character 
nothing. Interesting as she is, take Merope out of the circumstances 
in which she is placed, — take away her son, for whom she 
trembles from the first scene to the last, and Merope in herself 
is nothing ; she melts away into a name, to which we can fix 
no other characteristic by which to distinguish her. We recognize 
her no longer. Her position is that of an agonized mother ; and 
we can no more fancy her under a different aspect, than we can 
imagine the statue of Niobe in a different attitude. 

But while we contemplate the character of Constance, she 

• Malone says, that " in expanding the character of the bastard, Shakspeare 
seems to have proceeded on the following slight hint in an old play on the story of 
King John: — 

Next them a bastard of the king's deceased — 
A hardy wild-head, rough and venturous. " 

It is easy to say this ; yet who but Shakspeare could have expanded the last line 
into a Falconbridge ? 

fThe Greek Merope, which was esteemed one of the finest of the tragedies of 
Euripides, is unhappily lost; those of Maffei, Alfieri, and Voltaire, are well known. 
There is another Merope in Italian, which I have not seen ; the English Merope is 
merely a bad translation from Voltaire 



270 CONSTANCE. 

assumes before us an individuality perfectly distinct from the 
circumstances around her. The action calls forth her maternal 
feelings, and places them in the most prominent point of view: 
but with Constance, as with a real human being, the maternal 
affections are a powerful instinct, modified by other faculties, senti- 
ments, and impulses, making up the individual character. We 
think of her as a mother, because, as a mother distracted for the 
loss of her son, she is immediately presented before us, and calls 
forth our sympathy and our tears; but we infer the rest of her 
character from what we see, as certainly and as completely as if 
we had known her whole course of life. 

That which strikes us as the principal attribute of Constance 
is power — power of imagination, of will, of passion, of affection, 
of pride : the moral energy, that faculty which is principally 
exercised in self-control, and gives consistency to the rest, is 
deficient; or rather, to speak more correctly, the extraordinary 
development of sensibility and imagination, which lends to the 
character its rich poetical coloring, leaves the other qualities 
comparatively subordinate. Hence it is that the whole complexion 
of the character, notwithstanding its amazing grandeur, is so 
exquisitely feminine. The weakness of the woman, who by the 
very consciousness of that weakness is worked up to desperation 
and defiance, the fluctuations of temper and the bursts of sublime 
passion, the terrors, the impatience, and the tears, are all most 
true to feminine nature. The energy of Constance not being 
based upon strength of character, rises and falls with the tide 
of passion. Her haughty spirit swells against resistance, and is 
excited into frenzy by sorrow and disappointment ; while neither 
from her towering pride, nor her strength of intellect, can she 
borrow patience to submit, or fortitude to endure. It is, therefore, 
with perfect truth of nature, that Constance is first introduced as 
pi fading for peace. 



Stay for an answer to your embassy, 

Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood : 

My lord Chatillon may from England bring 

That right in peace, which here we urge in war ; 



CONSTANCE. 271 

And then we shall repent each drop of blood, 
That hot, rash haste so indirectly shed. 

And that the same woman, when all her passions are roused by 
the sense of injury, should afterwards exclaim, 

War, war ! No peace ! peace is to me a war ! 

That she should be ambitious for her son, proud of his high 
birth and royal rights, and violent in defending them, is most 
natural ; but I cannot agree with those who think that in the mind of 
Constance, ambition — that is, the love of dominion for its own sake 
— is either a strong motive or a strong feeling : it could hardly be 
so where the natural impulses and the ideal power predominate in 
so high a degree. The vehemence with which she asserts the just 
and legal rights of her son is that of a fond mother and a proud- 
spirited woman, stung with the sense of injury, and herself a 
reigning sovereign, — by birth and right, if not in fact : yet when 
bereaved of her son, grief not only " fills the room up of her absent 
child," but seems to absorb every other faculty and feeling — even 
pride and anger. It is true that she exults over him as one whom 
nature and fortune had destined to be great, but in her distraction 
for his loss, she thinks of him only as her " Pretty Arthur." 

O lord ! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ! 
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world ! 
My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure ! 

No other feeling can be traced through the whole of her frantic 
scene : it is grief only, a mother's heart-rending, soul-absorbing 
grief, and nothing else. Not even indignation, or the desire of 
revenge, interfere with its soleness and intensity. An ambitious 
woman would hardly have thus addressed the cold, wily Cardinal : — 

And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say, 

That we shall see and know our friends in heaven : 

If that be true, I shall see my boy again; 

For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, 



272 CONSTANCE. 

To him that did but yesterday suspire, 
There was not such a gracious creature born. 
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud, 
And chase the native beauty from his cheek, 
And he will look as hollow as a ghost ; 
As dim and meager as an ague's fit ; 
And so he'll die ; and rising so again, 
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven 
I shall not know him : therefore never, never, 
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more ! 

The bewildered pathos and poetry of this address could be natural 
in no woman, who did not unite, like Constance, the most passionate 
sensibility with the most vivid imagination. 

It is true that Queen Elinor calls her on one occasion, " ambitious 
Constance ; " but the epithet is rather the natural expression of 
Elinor's own fear and hatred than really applicable.* Elinor, in 
whom age had subdued all passions but ambition, dreaded the mother 
of Arthur as her rival in power, and for that reason only opposed 
the claims of the son : but I conceive, that in a woman yet in 
the prime of life, and endued with the peculiar disposition of 
Constance, the mere love of power would be too much modified 
by fancy and feeling to be called a passion. 

In fact, it is not pride, nor temper, nor ambition, nor even 
maternal affection, which in Constance gives the prevailing tone to 
the whole character : it is the predominance of imagination. I do 
not mean in the conception of the dramatic portrait, but in the 
temperament of the woman herself. In the poetical, fanciful, 
excitable cast of her mind, in the excess of the ideal power, 
tinging all her affections, exalting all her sentiments and thoughts, 
and animating the expression of both, Constance can only be 
compared to Juliet. 

In the first place, it is through the power of imagination that, 
when under the influence of excited temper, Constance is not a 



•"Queen Elinor saw that if he were king, how his mother Constance would 
look to bear the most rule in the realm of England, till her son should come to a 
lawful age to govern of himself." — Hoi.inshed 



C O N S T A iN E . 273 

mere incensed woman ; nor does she in the style of Volumnia, 
" lament in anger, .Iun«>-like," but rather like a sybil in a fury, 
ller sarcasms come down like thunderbolts. In her famous address 
to Austria — 

O Lymoges ! O Austria ! thou (lest sharne 

That bloody spoil ! thou slave ! thou wretch ! thou coward ! &c. 

it is as if she had concentrated the burning spirit of scorn, and 
dashed it in his face : every word seems to blister where it falls. 
In the scolding scene between her and queen Elinor, the laconic 
insolence of the latter is completely overborne by the torrent of 
bitter contumely which bursts from the lips of Constance, clothed 
in the most energetic, and often in the most figurative expressions 

ELINOR. 

Who is it thou dost call usurper, France ? 

CONSTANCE. 

Let me make answer ; Thy usurping son. 



Out insolent ! thy bastard shall be king, 

That thou may'st be a queen, and check the world! 

CONSTANCE. 

My bed was ever to thy son as true, 

As thine was to thy husband ; and this boy 

I.iker in feature to his father Geffrey, 

Than thou and John in manners : being as like 

As rain to water, or devil to his dam. 

My boy a bastard ! By my soul, I think 

His father never was so true begot; 

It cai:not be, an if thou wert his mother. 



There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father. 
So 



CONSTANCE. 

CONST ANTE. 

There's a good grar.dam, boy, that would blot tlico 
• • * * * 

ELINOR. 

Come to thy grandam. child. 

CONSTANCE. 

Do, child ; go to its grandam, child : 
Give grandam kingdom, and its grandam will 
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig : 
There's a good grandam. 



Good my mother, peace ! 
I would that I were low laid in my grave ; 
I am not worth this coil that's made for me. 

ELINOR. 

His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps. 

CONSTANCE. 

Now shame upon you, whe'r she does or no ! 

His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shame, 

Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes 

Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee : 

Ay, with these crystal beads heav'n shall be bribed 

To do him justice, and revenge on you. 

ELINOR. 

Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth ! 

CONSTANCE. 

Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth ! 
Call me not slanderer ; thou and thine usurp 
The dominations, royalties, and rights 
Of this oppressed boy. This is thy eldest son's son, 
Infortunate in nothing but in thee. 



C O N S T A N C E . 275 



Thou unadvised scold, I can produce 
A will that bars the title of thy son. 



Ay, who doubts that ? A will ! a wicked will — 
A woman's will — a canker'd grandam's will ! 

KING PHILIP. 

Peace, lady : pause, or be more moderate 

And in a very opposite mood, when struggling with the conscious- 
ness of her own helpless situation, the same susceptible and excitable 
fancy still predominates : — 

Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me; 
For I am sick, and capable of fears ; 
Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears ; 
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears ; 
A woman, naturally born to fears ; 
And though thou now confess thou didst but jest 
With my vexed spirits, I cannot take a truce, 
But they will quake and tremble all this day. 
What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head ? 
Why dost thou look so sadly on my son ? 
What means that hand upon that breast of thine? 
Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum, 
Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds? 
Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words ? 

****** 
Fellow, begone ! I cannot brook thy sight — 
This news hath made thee a most ugly man! 

It is the power of imagination which gives so peculiar a tinge to 
the maternal tenderness of Constance ; she not only loves her son 
with the fond instinct of a mother's affection, but she loves him 
with her poetical imagination, exults in his beauty and his royal 
birth, hangs over him with idolatry, and sees his infant brow already 
encircled with the diadem. Her proud spirit, her ardent enthusiastic 



276 CONSTANCE. 

fancy, and her energetic self-will, all combine with her maternal love 
to give it that tone and character which belongs to her only : hence 
that most beautiful address to her son which, coining from the lips 
of Constance, is as full of nature and truth as of pathos and 
poetry, and which we could hardly sympathize with in any other: — 

ARTHUR. 

I do beseech you, madam, be content. 

CONSTANCE. 

If thou, that bid'st me be content, wert grim, 
Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb, 
Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains, 
Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious, 
Patched with foul moles and eye-offending marks, 
I would not care — I then would be content; 
For then I should not love thee ; no, nor thou 
Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown. 
Tint thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy ! 
Nature and Fortune -join'd to make thee great: 
Of Nature's gifts thou mayest with lilies boast, 
And with the half-blown rose: but Fortune, O! 
She is corrupted, ch.uig'd, and won from thee; 
She adulterates hourly with thine uncle John; 
And with her golden hand bath pluck'd on France 
To tread down fair respect of sovereignty. 

It is this exceeding vivacity of imagination which in the and 
turns sorrow to frenzy. Con.^tance is not only a bereaved ar.iJ 
doaiing mother, but a srenerous woman, betrayed by her own rash 
confidence; in whose mind the sense of injury mingling with the 
sense of grief, and her impetuous temper conflicting with her pride, 
combine to overset her reason ; yet she is not mad : and how 
admirably, how forcibly she herself draws the distinction between 
the frantic violence of uncontrolled feeling and actual madness! — ■ 

Thou art not hcly to belie me so ; 

I am. not mad : this hair I tear is mine ; 

My name is Constance ; I was Geffrey's wife ; 



CONSTANCE. 277 

Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost : 
I am not mad : I would to Heaven I were ! 
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself: 
O, if I could, what grief should I forget ! 



Not only lias Constance words at will, and fast as the passionate 
feelings rise in her mind they are poured forth with vivid, over- 
powering eloquence ; but, like Juliet, she may be said to speak in 
pictures. For instance : — 

Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum ? 
Like a proud river peering o'er its bounds. 

And throughout the whole dialogue there is the same overflow 
of eloquence, the same splendor of diction, the same luxuriance 
of imagery; yet with an added grandeur, arising from habits of 
command, from the age, the rank, and the matronly character of 
Constance. Thus Juliet pours forth her love like a muse in a 
rapture: Constance raves in her sorrow like a Pythoness possessed 
with the spirit of pain. The love of Juliet is deep and infinite 
as the boundless sea : and the grief of Constance is so great, 
that nothing but the round world itself is able to sustain it. 

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud; 
For grief is proud and mikes his owner stout. 
To me, and to the state of ray great grief 
Let kings assemble, for my grief's so great, 
That no supporter but the huge firm earth 
Can hold it up. Here I and Sorrow sit; 
Here is my throne, — bid kings come bow to it! 

An ima^e more majestic, more wonderfully sublime, 'vas never 
presented to the fancy ; yet almost equal as a flight of poetry is 
her apostrophe to the heavens ; — 



Arm, arm, ye neavens, against these perjured kings, 
A widow calls ! — be husband to me, heavens ' 



278 CONSTANCE. 

And again — 

O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth, 
Then with a passion would I shake the world ! 

Not only do lier thoughts start into images, but her feelings 
become persons : grief haunts her as a living presence : 

Grief fills the room up of my absent child ; 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me ; 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
Remembers me of all his gracious parts, 
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form ; 
Then have I reason to be fond of grief. 

And death is welcomed as a bridegroom ; she sees the visional y 
monster as Juliet saw " the bloody Tybalt festering in his shroud," 
and heaps one ghastly image upon another with all the wild 
luxuriance of a distempered fancy : — 

O amiable, lovely death ! 
Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness! 
Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, 
Thou hate and terror to prosperity, 
And I will kiss thy detestable bones ; 
And put my eye-balls in thy vaulty brows ; 
And ring these fingers with thy household worms ; 
And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust; 
And be a carrion monster like thyself: 
' Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st. 
And buss thee as thy wife ! Misery's love, 
O come to me ! 

Constance, who is a majestic being, is majestic in her very frenzy. 
Majesty is also the characteristic of Hermione : but what a difference 
between her silent, lofty, uncomplaining despair, and the eloquent 
grief of Constance, whose wild lamentations, which come bursting 
forth dothed in the grandest, the most poetical imagery, not only 
melt, but absolutely electrify us ! 



CONSTANCE. 279 

On the whole, it may be said that pride and maternal affection 
form the basis of the character of Constance, as it is exhibited to 
us ; but that these passions, in an equal degree common to many 
human beings, assume their peculiar and individual tinge from an 
extraordinary development of intellect and fancy. It is the energy 
of passion which lends the character its concentrated power, as it is 
the prevalence of imagination throughout which dilates it into 
magnificence. 

Some of the most splendid poetry to be met with in Shakspeare, 
may be found in the parts of Juliet and Constance ; the most splendid 
perhaps, excepting only the parts of Lear and Othello ; and for the 
same reason, — that Lear and Othello as men, and Juliet and Constance 
as women, are distinguished by the predominance of the same 
faculties — passion and imagination. 

The sole deviation from history which may be considered as 
essentially interfering with the truth of the situation, is the entire 
omission of the character of Guy de Thouars, so that Constance is 
incorrectly represented as in a state of widowhood, at a period when, 
in point of fact, she was married. It may be observed, that her 
marriage took place just at the period of the opening of the drama ; 
that Guy de Thouars played no conspicuous part in the affairs of 
Bretagne till after the death of Constance, and that the mere presence 
of this personage, altogether superfluous in the action, would have 
completely destroyed the dramatic interest of the situation ; — and what 
a situation! One more magnificent was never placed before the 
mind's eye than that of Constance, when, deserted and betrayed, she 
stands alone in her despair, amid her false friends and her ruthless 
enemies ! * The image, of the mother-eagle, wounded and bleeding to 
death, yet stretched over her young in an attitude of defiance, while 
all the baser birds of prey are clamoring around her eirie, gives but 
a faint idea of the moral sublimity of this scene. Considered merely 
as a poetical or dramatic picture, the grouping is wonderfully fine; 
on one side, the vulture ambition of that mean-souled tyrant, John; 
on the other, the selfish, calculating policy of Philip : between them, 
balancing their passions in his hand, the cold, subtle, heartless 

•King John, Act iii., scene 1 



280 CONSTANCE. 

Legate : the fiery, reckless Falconbridge ; the princely Louis ; thp stiL 
unconquered spirit of that wrangling queen, old Elinor; the bridal 
loveliness and modesty of Blanche; the boyish grace and innocence 
of young Arthur ; and Constance in the midst of them, in all 
the state of her great grief, a grand impersonation of pride 
and passion, helpless at once and desperate, — form an assemblage 
of figures, each perfect in its kind, and taken all together, not 
surpassed, for the variety, force, and splendor of the dramatic and 
picturesque effect 



QUEEN ELINOR 



Elinor of Guienne, and Blanche of Castile, who form part of the 
group around Constance, are sketches merely, but they are strictly 
historical portraits, and full of truth and energy. 

At the period when Shakspeare has brought these three women on 
the scene together, Elinor of Guienne (the daughter of the last Duke 
of Guienne and Aquitaine, and, like Constance, the heiress of a 
sovereign duchy), was near the close of her long, various, and 
unquiet life — she was nearly seventy ; and as in early youth her 
violent passions had overborne both principle and policy, so in her 
old age we see the same character only modified by time ; her strong 
intellect, and love of power, unbridled by conscience or principle, 
surviving when other passions were extinguished, and rendered more 
dangerous by a degree of subtlety and self-command to which her 
youth had been a stranger. Her personal and avowed hatred for 
Constance, together with its motives, are mentioned by the old 
historians. Holinshed expressly says, that Queen Elinor was mightily 
set against her grandson Arthur, rather moved thereto by envy 
conceived against his mother, than by any fault of the young 
prince, for that she knew and dreaded the high spirit of the Lady 
Constance. 

Shakspeare has rendered this with equal spirit and fidelity 

QTTEEN ELISOR. 

What now, my son ! have I not ever said, 
How that ambitious Constance would not cease, 
36 



282 QUEEN ELINOR. 

Till she had kindled France and all the world 

Upon the right and party of her son ? 

This might have bsen prevented and made whole 

With very easy arguments of love ; 

Which now the manage of two kingdoms must 

With fearful bloody issue arbitrate. 

KTNC JOHN. 

Our strong possession and our right for us ! 

QUEEN ELKOK. 

Your strong possession much more than your right; 
Or else it must go wrong with you and me. 
So much my conscience whispers in your ear — 
Which none but Heaven, and you, and I, shall hear. 

Queen Elinor preserved to the end of her life her influence over 
her children, and appears to have merited their respect. While 
entrusted with the government, during the absence of Richard I., she 
ruled with a steady hand, and made herself exceedingly popular ; and 
as long as she lived to direct the counsels of her son John his affairs 
prospered. For that intemperate jealousy which converted her into a 
domestic firebrand, there was at least much cause, though little 
excuse. Elinor had hated and wronged the husband of her youth, * 
and she had afterwards to endure the negligence and innumerable 
infidelities of the husband whom she passionately loved :f — "and so 
the whirlygig of time brought in his revenges." Elinor died in 
1203, a few months after Constance, and before the murder of 
Arthur — a crime which, had she lived, would probably never have 
been consummated ; for the nature of Elinor, though violent, had no 
tincture of the baseness and cruelty of her son. 



* Louis VII. of France, whom she was accustomed to call in contempt, the monk. 
Elinor's adventures in Syria, whither she accompanied Louis on the second Crusade, 
would form a romance. 

f Henry II. of England. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the story of Fair 
Rosamond, as far as Elinor is concerned, is a mere invention of some ballad-maker 
of later times. 



BLANCHE . 



Blanche of Castile was the daughter of Alphonso IX. of Castile, 
and the grand-daughter of Elinor. At the time that she is introduced 
into the drama, she was about fifteen, and her marriage with Louis 
VIII., then Dauphin, took place in the abrupt manner here 
represented. It is not often that political marriages have the same 
happy result. We are told by the historians of that time, that 
from the moment Louis and Blanche met, they were inspired by a 
mutual passion, and that during a union of more than twenty-six 
years they were never known to differ, nor even spent more than a 
single day asunder.* 

In her exceeding beauty and blameless reputation ; her love for 
her husband, and strong domestic affections; her pride of birth and 
rank ; her feminine gentleness of deportment ; her firmness of temper ; 
her religious bigotry; her love of absolute power and her upright 
and conscientious administration of it, Blanche greatly resembled 
Maria Theresa of Austria. She was, however, of a more cold and 
calculating nature; and in proportion as she was less amiable as 
a woman, did she rule more happily for herself and others. There 
cannot be a greater contrast than between the acute understanding, 
the steady temper, and the cool intriguing policy of Blanche, by 
which she succeeded in disuniting and defeating the powers arrayed 

* Vide Mezerai. 



284 BLANCHE. 

against her and her infant son, and the rash confiding temper and 
susceptible imagination of Constance, which rendered herself and 
her son easy victims to the fraud or ambition of others. Blanche, 
during forty years, held in her hands the destinies of the greater 
part of Europe, and is one of the most celebrated names recorded 
in history — but in what docs she survive to us except in a name ? 
Nor history, nor fame, though " trumpet-tongued," could do for 
her what Shakspearc and poetry have done for Constance. The 
earthly reign of Blanche is over, her sceptre broken, and her power 
departed. When will the reign of Constunce cease 1 when will her 
power depart? Not while this world is a world, and there exist 
in it human souls to kindle at the touch of genius, and human 
hearts to throb with human sympathies! 

There is no female character of any interest in the play of Richard 
II. The Queen (Isabelle of Fiance) enacts the same passive part in 
the drama that she does in history. 

The same remark applies to Henry IV. In this admirable play 
there is no female character of any importance; but Lady Percy, 
the wife of Hotspur, is a very lively and beautiful sketch: she is 
sprightly, feminine, and fond; but without anything energetic or 
profound, in mind or in feeling. Her gaiety anrl spirit, in the 
first scenes, are the result of youth and happiness, and nothing can 
be more natural than the utter dejection and brokenness of heart. 
which follow her husband's death : she is no heroine for war or 
v: she has no thought of revenging her loss: and even her 
grief has something soft and quiet in its pathos. Her speech to 
her father-in-law, Northumberland, in which she entreats him " not 
to co to the wars," and at the same time pronounces the most 
beautiful eulogium on her heroic husband, is a perfect piece of 
feminine eloquence, both in the feeling and in the expression. 

Almost every one knows by heart Lady Percy's celebrated 
address to her husband, beginning, 

O, my good lord, why are you thus alone ? 

and that of Portia to Brutus, in Julius Ceesar, 



PORTIA . 

You've ungently, Brutus, 
iStol'n from my bed. 



The situation is exactly similar, the topics of remonstrance are 
nearly the same ; the sentiments and the style as, opposite as are 
the characters of the two women. Lady Percy is evidently 
accustomed to win more from her fiery lord by caresses than by 
reason : he loves her in his rough way, " as Harry Percy's wife," 
but she has no real influence over him : he has no confidence in 
her. 

LADY PERCY. 

In faith, 
I'll know your business, Harry, that I will J 
I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir 
About his title, and hath sent for you 
To line his enterprise, but if you go — 

HOTSPUR. 

So far afoot, I shall be weary, love ! 

The whole scene is admirable, but unnecessary here, because it 
illustrates no point of character in her. Lady Percy has no character, 
properly so called; whereas, that of Portia is very distinctly and 
faithfully drawn from the outline furnished by Plutarch. Lady 
Percy's fond upbraid ings, and her half playful, half pouting entreaties, 
scarcely gain her husband's attention. Portia, with true matronly 
dignity and tenderness, pleads her right to share her husband's 
thoughts, and proves it too. 



I grant I am a woman, but withal, 

A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife ; 

I grant I am a woman, but withal, 

A woman well reputed — Cato's daughter. 

Think you I am no stronger than my sex, 

Being so father'd and so husbanded ? 



286 PORTIA. 



You are my true and honorable wife : 
As dear to me, as are the ruddy drops 
That visit my sad heart! 

Portia, as Shakspeare has truly felt and represented the character, 
is but a softened reflection of that of her husband Brutus : in him 
we see an excess of natural sensibility, an almost womanish 
tenderness of heart, repressed by the tenets of his austere philosophy : 
a stoic by profession, and in reality the reverse — acting deeds 
against his nature by the strong force of principle and will. In 
Portia there is the same profound and passionate feeling, and all 
her sex's softness and timidity held in check, by that self-discipline, 
that stately dignity, which she thought became a woman " so 
fathered and so husbanded." The fact of her inflicting on herself 
a voluntary wound to try her own fortitude is perhaps the strongest 
proof of this disposition. Plutarch relates, that on the day on which 
Caesar was assassinated, Portia appeared overcome with terror, and 
even swooned away, but did not in her emotion utter a word 
which could affect the conspirators. Shakspeare has rendered this 
circumstance literally. 



I pr'ythee, boy, run to the senate house, 
Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone. 
Why dost thou stay? 

Lucres. 
To know my errand, madam. 



I would have had thee there and here again, 
Ere I can tell thee what thou should'st do there. 

constancy ! be strong upon my side : 

Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tonguo ! 

1 have a man's mind, but a woman's might. 

Ah me! how weak a thing 
The heart of woman is ! O I grow faint, &c. 



PORTIA. 287 

There is another beautiful incident related by Plutarch, which 
could not well be dramatised. When Brutus and Portia parted 
for the last time on the island of Nisida, she restrained all 
expression of grief that she might not shake his fortitude; but 
afterwards, in passing through a chamber in which there hung a picture 
of Hector and Andromache, she stopped, gazed upon it for a 
time with a settled sorrow, and at length burst into a passion of 
tears. * 

If Portia had been a Christian, and lived in later times, she 
mi"bt have been another Lady Russell ; but she made a poor 
stoic. No factitious or external control was sufficient to restrain 
such an exuberance of sensibility and fancy : and those who praise 
the philosophy of Portia, and the heroism of her death, certainly 
mistook the character altogether. It is evident from the manner 
of her death, that it was not deliberate self-destruction, " after the 
high Roman fashion," but took place in a paroxysm of madness, 
caused by over-wrought and suppressed feeling, grief, terror, and 
suspense. Shakspeare has thus represented it:- • 

BRUTUS. 

O Cassius ! I am sick of many griefs ! 



Of your philosophy you make no use, 
If you give place to accidental evils. 

BRUTUS. 

No man bears sorrow better; Portia's dead. 

CASSIUS. 

Ha !— Portia ? 



* When at Naple9, I have often stood upon the rock at tne extreme point of 
Posilippo, and looked down upon the little Island of Nisida, and thought of this 
scene till I forgot the Lazaretto which now deforms it: deforms it, however, to 
the fancy only, for the building itself, as it rises from amid the vines, the 
cypresses, and fig-trees which embosom it, looks beautiful at a distance. 



286 PORTIA. 



She is dead. 



How 'scap : d I killing when I cross'd you so ? 
O insupportable and touching loss — 
Upon what sickness ? 



Impatient of my absence, 
And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony 
Had made themselves so strong — (for with her death 
These tidings came) — with this she fell distract 
And, her attendants absent, swallowed (he. 



So much for woman's philosophy! 



MARGARET OF ANJOU. 



Malone has written an essay, to prove from external and internal 
evidence, that the three parts of King Henry VI. were not originally 
-written by Shakspeare, but altered by him from two old plays,* with 
considerable improvements and additions of his own. Burke, Porson, 
Dr. Warburton, and Dr. Farmer, pronounced this piece of criticism 
convincing and unanswerable ; but Dr. Johnson and Steevens would 
not be convinced, and, moreover, have contrived to answer the 
unanswerable. " Who shall decide when doctors disagree 1 " The 
only arbiter in such a case is one's own individual taste and 
judgment. To me it appears that the three parts of Henry VI. have 
less of poetry and passion, and more of unnecessary verbosity and 
inflated language, than the rest of Shakspeare's works ; that the 
continual exhibition of treachery, bloodshed, and violence, is revolting, 
and the want of unity of action, and of a prevailing interest, oppressive 
and fatiguing; but also, that there are splendid passages in the Second 
and Third Parts, such as Shakspeare alone could have written : and 
this is not denied by the most sceptical, f 

•"The contention of the two Houses of York and Lancaster," in two parts, sup- 
posed by Malone to have been written about 1590. 

f I abstain from making my remarks on the character of Joan of Arc, as 
aelineated in the First part '>f Henry VI. ; first, because I do not in my conscience 
attribute it to Shakspeare, jnd secondly, because in representing her according to 
the vulgar English traditions, as half sorceress, half enthusiast, and, in the end, 
corrupted by pleasure and ambition, the truth of history, and the truth of nature, 
justice, and common sense, are equal! " violated Schiller has treated the character 

37 



290 MARGARET OF ANJOU. 

Among the arguments against the authenticity of these plays, the 
character of Margaret of Anjou has not been adduced, and yet to 
those who have studied Shakspeare in his own spirit it will appear 
the most conclusive of all. When we compare her with his other 
female characters, we are struck at once by the want of family 
likeness ; Shakspeare was not always equal, but he had not two 
manners, as they say of painters. I discern his hand in particular 
parts, but I cannot recognize his spirit in the conception of the 
whole : he may have laid on some of the colors, but the original 
design has a certain hardness and heaviness, very unlike his usual 
style. Margaret of Anjou, as exhibited in these tragedies, is a 
dramatic portrait of considerable truth, and vigor, and consistency — 
but she is not one of Shakspeare's women. He who knew so well 
in wnat true greatness of spirit consisted — who could excite our 
respect and sympathy even for a Lady Macbeth, would never have 
given us a heroine without a touch of heroism; he would not have 
portrayed a high-liearted woman, struggling unsubdued against the 
strangest vicissitudes of fortune, meeting reverses and disasters, such 
as would have broken the most masculine spirit, with unshaken 
constancy, yet left her without a single personal quality which 
would excite our interest in her bravely-endured misfortunes; and 
this too in the very face of history. He would not have given 
us, in lieu of the magnanimous queen, the subtle and accomplished 
Frenchwoman, a mere " Amazonian trull," with every coarser 
feature of depravity and ferocity ; he would have redeemed her 
from unmingled detestation ; lie would have breathed into her 



nobly : but in making Joan the slave of passion, and the victim of love, instead of 
the victim of patriotism, has committed, I think, a serious error in judgment and 
feeling ; and I cannot sympathize with Madame de StaeTs defence of him on this 
particular point There was no occasion for this deviation from the truth of things, 
and from the dignity and spotless purity of the character. This young enthusiast, 
with her religious reveries, her simplicity, her heroism, her melancholy, her sensi- 
bility, her fortitude, her perfectly feminine bearing in all her exploits (for though she 
so often led the van of battle unshrinking, while death was all around her, she 
never struck a blow, nor stained her consecrated sword with blood, — another point 
in which Schiller has wronged her), this heroine and martyr, over whose last 
moments we shed burning tears of pity and indignation, remains yet to be treated as 
a dramatic clinrarter, and T know but one person capable of doing this. 



MARGARET OF ANJOU. 291 

some of his own sweet spirit — he would have given the woman 
a soul. 

The old chronicler Hall informs us that Queen Margaret 
" excelled all other as well in beauty and favor, as in wit and 
policy, and was in stomach and courage more like to a man than 
to a woman. " He adds, that after the espousals of Henry and 
Margaret, "the king's friends fell from him: the lords of the 
realm fell in division among themselves ; the Commons rebelled 
against their natural prince ; fields were foughten ; many thousands 
slain; and, finally, the king was deposed, and his son slain, and 
his queen sent home again with as much misery and sorrow, as 
she was received with pomp and triumph. " 

This passage seems to have furnished the groundwork of the 
character as it is developed in these plays with no great depth 
or skill. Margaret is portrayed with all the exterior graces of 
her sex; as bold and artful, with spirit to dare, resolution to 
act, and fortitude to endure ; but treacherous, haughty, dissembling, 
vindictive and fierce. The bloody struggle for power in which 
she was engaged, and the companionship of the ruthless iron men 
around her, seem to have left her nothing of womanhood but the 
heart of a mother — that last stronghold of our feminine nature ! 
So far the character is consistently drawn; it has something of 
the power, but none of the flowing ease of Shakspeare's mannar. 
There are fine materials not well applied ; there is poetry in some 
of the scenes and speeches ; the situations are often exceedingly 
poetical ; but in the character of Margaret herself there is not 
an atom of poetry. In her artificial dignity, her plausible wit, 
and her endless volubility, she would remind us of some of the 
most admired heroines of French tragedy, but for that unlucky 
box on the ear which she gives the Duchess of Gloster, — a 
violation of tragic decorum, which of course destroys all parallel. 

Having said thus much, I shall point out some of the finest 
and most characteristic scenes in which Margaret appears. The 
speech in which she expresses her scorn of her meek husband, and 
her impatience of the power exercised by those fierce overbearing 
barons, York, Salisbury, Warwick, Buckingham, is very fine, and 
conveys as faithful an idea of those feudal times as of the woman 



292 QUEEN MARGARET. 

who speaks. The burst of female spite with which she concludes, 
is admirable — 

Not all these lords do vex me half so much 

As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife. 

She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies, 

More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife. 

Strangers in court do take her for the queen : 

She bears a duke's revenues on her back, 

And in her heart she scorns our poverty. 

Shall I not live to be avenged on her? 

Contemptuous base-born callet as she is ! 

She vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day, 

The very train of her worst wearing gown 

Was better worth than all my father's lane's, 

Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter. 

Her intriguing spirit, the facility with which she enters into 
the murderous confederacy against the good Duke Humphrey, 
the artful plausibility with which she endeavors to turn suspicion 
from herself — confounding her gentle consort by mere dint of 
words — are exceedingly characteristic, but not the less revolting. 

Her criminal love for Suffolk (which is a dramatic incident, 
not an historic fact) gives rise to the beautiful parting scene in 
the third act ; a scene which it is impossible to read without 
a thrill of emotion, hurried away by that power and pathos which 
forces us to sympathize with the eloquence of grief, yet excites 
not a momentary interest either for Margaret or her lover. The 
ungoverned fury of Margaret in the first instance, the manner in 
which she calls on Suffolk to curse his enemies, and then shrinks 
back overcome by the violence of the spirit she had herself 
evoked, and terrified by the vehemence of his imprecations; the 
transition in her mind from the extremity of rage and tears and 
melting fondness, have been pronounced, and justly, to be in 
Shakspeare's own manner. 

Go, speak not to me — even now begone. 

O go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd 

Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves, 



QUEEN M ARG A RET . 298 

Loather a hundred times to part than die : 
Yet now farewell ; and farewell life with thee ! 



which is followed by that beautiful and intense burst of passion 
from Suffolk — 

! Tis not the hand I care for, wert thou hence ; 

A wilderness is populous enough, 

So Suffolk had thy heavenly company : 

For where thou art, there is the world itself, 

With every several pleasure in the world ; 

And where thou art not, desolation ! 

In the third part of Henry the Sixth, Margaret, engaged in the 
terrible struggle for her husband's throne, appears to rather more 
advantage. The indignation against Henry, who had pitifully yielded 
his son's birthright for the privilege of reigning unmolested during 
his own life, is worthy of her, and gives rise to a beautiful 
speech. We are here inclined to sympathize with her; but soon 
after follows the murder of the Duke of York; and the base 
revengeful spirit and atrocious cruelty with which she insults over 
him, unarmed and a prisoner, — the bitterness of her mockery, and 
the unwomanly malignity with which she presents him with the 
napkin stained with the blood of his youngest son, and " bids the 
father wipe his eyes withal," turn all our sympathy into aversion 
and horror. York replies in the celebrated speech, beginning — 

She-wolf of France, and worse than wolves of France, 
Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth — 

and taunts her with the poverty of her father, the most irritating 
topic he could have chosen. 

Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult? 
It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen, 
Unless the adage must be verified, 
That beggars, mounted, ride their horse to death. 
'Tis beauty, that doth oft make women proud ; 



294 QUEEN MARGARET. 

But, God lie knows, thy share thereof is small. 
'Tis virtue that doth make them most admired ; 
The contrary doth make thee wondered at. 
'Tis government that makes them seem divine, 
The want thereof makes thee abominable. 
****** 
O tiger's heart, wrapped in a woman's hide ! 
How could'st thou drain the life-blood of the child 
To bid the father wipe his face withal, 
And yet be seen to bear a woman's face ? 
Women are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible, 
Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless ! 

By such a woman as Margaret is here depicted such a speech 
could be answered only in one way — with her dagger's point — and 
thus she answers it. 

It is some comfort to reflect that this trait of ferocity is not 
historical : the body of the Duke of York was found, after the 
battle, among the heaps of slain, and his head struck off: but 
even this was not done by the command of Margaret. 

In another passage, the truth and consistency of the character 
of Margaret are sacrificed to the march of the dramatic action, 
with a very ill effect. When her fortunes were at the very 
lowest ebb, and she had sought refuge in the court of the French 
kins;, Warwick, her most formidable enemy, upon some disgust he 
had taken against Edward the Fourth, offered to espouse her 
cause ; and proposed a match between the prince her son and 
his daughter Anne of Warwick — the " gentle Lady Anne," who 
figures in Richard the Third. In the play, Margaret embraces 
the offer without a moment's hesitation:* we are disgusted by her 
versatile policy, and a meanness of spirit in no way allied to the 
magnanimous forgiveness of her terrible adversary. The Margaret 
of history sternly resisted this degrading expedient. She coald not, 

*See Henry VI., Part III., Act. iii., sc. J— 

QUEEN MARGARET. 

Warwick, these words have turned my hale to love . 

And I forgive and quite forget old faulst, 

And joy, that thou becom'st Kins Henry's friend 



QUEEN MARGARET. 295 

she said, pardon from her heart the man who hac been the 
primary cause of all her misfortunes. She mistrusted Warwick, 
despised him for the motives of his revolt from Edward, and 
considered that to match her son into the family of her enemy 
from mere policy, was a species of degradation. It took Louis 
the Eleventh, with all his art and eloquence, fifteen days to wring 
a reluctant consent, accompanied with tears, from this high-hearted 
woman. 

The speech of Margaret to her council of generals before the 
battle of Tewkesbury (Act v., scene 5), is as remarkable a specimen 
of false rhetoric, as her address to the soldiers on the eve of the 
fight, is of true and passionate eloquence. 

She witnesses the final defeat of her army, the massacre of her 
adherents, and the murder of her son; and though the savage 
Richard would willingly have put an end to her misery, and 
exclaims very pertinently — 

Why should she live to fill the world with words ? 

she is dragged forth unharmed, a woful spectacle of extreme 
wretchedness, to which death would have been an undeserved relief. 
If we compare the clamorous and loud exclaims of Margaret after 
the slaughter of her son, to the ravings of Constance, we shall 
perceive where Shakspeare's genius did not preside, and where it 
did. Margaret, in bold defiance of history, but with fine dramatic 
effect, is introduced again in the gorgeous and polluted court of 
Edward the Fourth. There she stalks around the seat of her 
former greatness, like a terrible phantom of departed majesty, 
uncrowned, unsceptred, desolate, powerless — or like a vampire thirsting 
for blood — or like a grim prophetess of evil, imprecating that ruin 
on the head of her enemies which she lives to see realized. The 
scene following the murder of the princes in the Tower, in which 
Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of York sit down on the ground 
bewailing their desolation, and Margaret suddenly appears from 
behind them, like the very personification of woe, and seats herself 
beside them revelling in their despair, is, in the general conception 
and effect, grand and appalling. 



296 QUEEN MARGARET. 



THE DUCHESS. 

O, Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes; 
God witness with me, I have wept for thinn ! 

QUEEN MARGARET. 

Bear with me, I am hungry for revenge, 

And now I cloy me with heholding it. 

Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward ; 

Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward : 

Young York he is but boot, because both they 

Match not the high perfection of my loss. 

Thy Clarence he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward ; 

And the beholders of this tragic play, 

The adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey, 

Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves. 

Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer, 

Only reserv'd their factor, to buy souls 

And send them thither. But at hand, at hand, 

Ensues his piteous and unpitied end ; 

Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar for him ; saints pray 

To have him suddenly convey'd from hence. 

Cancel his bond of life, dear god, I pray, 

That I may live to say, The dog is dead.* 

She should have stopped here ; but the effect thus powerfully- 
excited is marred and weakened by so much superfluous rhetoric, 
that we are tempted to exclaim with the old Duchess of York — 



Why should calamity be full of words ? 



•Horace Walpole observes, that "it is evident irom the conduct of Shakspeare, 
that the house of Tudor retained all their Lancasterian prejudices even in the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth. In his play of Richard the Third, he seems to deduce the 
woes of the house of York from the curses which Queen Margaret had vented 
against them ; and he could not give that weight to her curses, without supposing 
a right in her to utter them." 



QUEEN KATHERINE OF ARRAGON, 



To have a just idea of the accuracy and beauty of this historical 
portrait, we ought to bring immediately before us those circumstances 
of Katherine's life and times, and those parts of her character, 
which belong to a period previous to the opening of the play. We 
shall then be better able to appreciate the skill with which 
Shakspeare has applied the materials before him. 

Katherine of Arragon, the fourth and youngest daughter of 
Ferdinand king of Arragon, and Isabella of Castile, was born at 
Alcala, whither her mother had retired to winter after one of the 
most terrible campaigns of the Moorish war — that of 1485. 

Katherine had derived from nature no dazzling qualities of mind, 
and no striking advantages of person. She inherited a tincture of 
Queen Isabella's haughtiness and obstinacy of temper, but neither 
her beauty nor her splendid talents. Her education under the 
direction of that extraordinary mother, had implanted in her mind 
the most austere principles of virtue, the highest ideas of female 
decorum, the most narrow and bigoted attachment to the forms of 
religion, and that excessive pride of birth and rank which 
distinguished so particularly her family and her nation. In other 
respects, her understanding was strong, and her judgment clear. 
The natural turn of her mind was simple, serious and domestic, 
and all the impulses of her heart kindly and benevolent. Such 
was Katherine ; such, at least, she appears on a reference to the 

38 



298 KATHERINE OF A R R A G O N . 

chronicles of her times, and particularly from her own letters, and 
the papers written or dictated by herself which relate to her 
divorce ; all of which are distinguished by the same artless 
simplicity of style, the same quiet good sense, the same resolute, 
yet gentle spirit and fervent piety. 

When five years old, Katherine was solemnly affianced to Arthur, 
Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII.; and in the year 
1501, she landed in England, after narrowly escaping shipwreck 
on the southern coast, from which every adverse wind conspired to 
drive her. She was received in London with great honor, and 
immediately on her arrival united to the young prince. He was 
then fifteen, and Katherine in her seventeenth year. 

Arthur, as it is well known, survived his marriage only five 
months; and the reluctance of Henry VII. to refund the splendid 
dowry of the Infanta, and forego the advantages of an alliance 
with the most powerful prince of Europe, suggested the idea of 
uniting Katherine to his second son Henry; after some hesitation, 
a dispensation was procured from the Pope, and she was betrothed 
to Henry in her eighteenth year. The prince, who was then only 
twelve years old, resisted as far as he was able to do so, and 
appears to have really felt a degree of horror at the idea of 
marrying his brother's widow. Nor was the mind of King Henry 
at rest ; as his health declined, his conscience reproached him 
with the equivocal nature of the union into which he had forced 
his son ; and the vile motives of avarice and expediency which 
had governed him on this occasion. A short time previous to his 
death, he dissolved the engagement, and even caused Henry to 
sign a paper, in which he solemnly renounced all idea of a future 
union with the Infanta. It is observable, that Henry signed tins 
paper with reluctance, and that Katherine, instead of being sent 
back to her own country, still remained in England. 

It appears that Henry, who was now about seventeen, had become 
interested for Katherine, who was gentle and amiable. The difference 
of years was rather a circumstance in her favor ; for Henry was just 
at that age, when a youth is most likely to be captivated by a woman 
older than himself; and no sooner was he required to renounce her, 
than the interest she had gradually gained in his affections, became. 



KATHERINE OF ARRAGu 299 

by opposition, a strong passion. Immediately after his father's death 
he declared his resolution to take for his wife the Lady Katherine 
of Spain, and none other; and when the matter was discussed in 
council, it was urged that, besides the many advantages of the match 
in a political point of view, she had given so. " much proof of 
virtue, and sweetness of condition, as they knew not where to 
parallel her." About six weeks after his accession, June 3, 1509, 
the marriage was celebrated with truly royal splendor, Henry beinsj 
then eighteen, and Katherine in her twenty-fourth year. 

It has been said with truth, that if Henry had died while 
Katherine was yet his wife, and Wolsey his minister, he would have 
left behind him the character of a magnificent, popular and 
accomplished prince, instead of that of the most hateful ruffian and 
tyrant who ever swayed these realms. Notwithstanding his occasional 
infidelities, and his impatience at her midnight vigils, her long 
prayers, and her religious austerities, Katherine and Henry lived in 
harmony together. He was fond of openly displaying his respect 
and love for her; and she exercised a strong and salutary influence 
over his turbulent and despotic spirit. When Henry set out on his 
expedition to France, in 1513, he left Katherine regent of the 
kingdom during his absence, with full powers to carry on the war 
against the Scots; and the Earl of Surry at the head of the army, 
as her lieutenant-general. It is curious to find Katherine — the pacific, 
domestic, and unpretending Katherine — describing herself as having 
" her heart set to war," and " horrible busy" with making " standards, 
banners, badges, scarfs, and the like." * Nor was this mere silken 
preparation — mere dalliance with the pomp and circumstance of war; 
for within a few weeks afterwards, her general defeated the Scots in 
the famous battle of Flodden-field, where James IV. and most of his 
nobility were slain.f 

Katherine's letter to Henry, announcing this event, so strikingly*' . 
displays the piety and tenderness, the quiet simplicity, and reaL <... 



* See her letters in Ellis's Collection. 

t Under similar circumstances, one of Katherine's predecessors, Philippa of 
Hainault, had gained in her husband's absence the battle of Neville Cross, in which 
David Bruce was taken prisoner. 



300 KATHERINEOFARRAGON. 

magnanimity of her character, that there cannot be a more apt and 
beautiful illustration of the exquisite truth and keeping of 
Shakspeare's portrait. 

Sir, 
My Lord Howard hath sent me a letter, open to your Grace, 
within one of mine, by the which ye shall see at length the great 
victory that our Lord hath sent your subjects in your absence : and 
for this cause, it is no need herein to trouble your Grace with long 
writing ; but to my thinking this battle hath been to your Grace, 
and all your realm, the greatest honor that could be, and more than 
ye should win all the crown of France, thanked be God for it! 
And I am sure your Grace forgetteth not to do this, which shall be 
cause to send you many more such great victories, as I trust he shall do. 
My husband, for haste, with Rougecross, I could not send your Grace 
the piece of the king of Scots' coat, which John Glyn now bringeth. 
In this your grace shall see how I can keep my promise, sending 
you for your banners a king's coat. I thought to send himself unto 
you, but our Englishmen's hearts would not suffer it. It should have 
been better for him to have been in peace than have this reward, 
but all that God sendeth is for the best. My Lord of Surry, my 
Henry, would fain know your pleasure in the burying of the king of 
Scots' body, for he hath written to me so. With the next messenger, 
your Grace's pleasure may be herein known. And with this I make 
an end, praying God to send you home shortly ; for without this, no 
joy here can be accomplished — and for the same I pray. And now 
go to our Lady at Walsyngham, that I promised so long ago to see. 

At Woburn, the lGth day of September (1513). 

I send your Grace herein a bill, found in a Scott ishman's purse, of 
such things as the French king sent to the said king of Scots, 
to make war against you, beseeching you to send Mathew hither as 
soon as this messenger cometh with tidings of your Grace. 

Your humble wife and true servant, 
Katherine.* 

•Ellis's Collection. We must keep in mind that Katherine was a foreigner, and 
till after she was seventeen, never spoke or wrote a word of English 



KATHERINE OP ARRAGON. 301 

The legality of the king's marriage with Katherine remained 
undisputed till 1527. In the course of that year, Anna Bullen first 
appeared at court, and was appointed maid of honor to the queen ; 
and then, -and not till then, did Henry's union with his brother's 
wife " creep too near his conscience." In the following year, he sent 
special messengers to Rome, with secret instructions : they were 
required to discover (among other " hard questions") whether, if the 
queen entered a religious life, the king might have the Pope's 
dispensation to marry again ; and whether if the king (for the better 
inducing the queen thereto) would enter himself into a religious life, 
the Pope would dispense with the king's vow, and leave her there ? 

Poor Katherine ! we are not surprised to read that when she 
understood what was intended against her, "she labored with all 
those passions which jealousy of the king's affection, sense of her 
own honor, and the legitimation of her daughter, could produce, 
laying in conclusion the whole fault on the Cardinal." It is else- 
where said, that Wolsey bore the queen ill-will, in consequence of 
her reflecting with some severity on his haughty temper, and very 
unclerical life. 

The proceedings were pending for nearly six years, and one of the 
causes of this long delay, in spite of Henry's impatient and despotic 
character, is worth noting. The old Chronicle tells us, that though 
the men generally, and more particularly the priests and the nobles 
sided with Henry in this matter, yet all the ladies of England were 
against it. They justly felt that the honor and welfare of no woman 
was secure if, after twenty years of union, she might be thus 
deprived of all her rights as a wife; the clamor became so loud and 
general, that the king was obliged to yield to it for a time, to stop 
the proceedings, and to banish Anna Bullen from the court. 

Cardinal Campeggio, called by Shakspeare Campeius, arrived in 
England in October, 1528. He at first endeavored to persuade 
Katherine to avoid the disgrace and danger of contesting her 
marriage, by entering a religious house ; but she rejected his advice 
with strong expressions of disdain. "I am," said she, "the king's 
true wife and to him married ; and if all doctors were dead, or law 
or learning far out of men's minds at the time of our marriage, yet 
I cannot think that the court of Rome, and the whole church of 



302 KATHERIN^ OF ARRAGON. 

England, would have consented to a thing unlawful and detestable a3 
you call it. Still I say I am his wife, and for him will I pray." 

About two years afterwards, Wolsey died (in November, 1530) : 
— the king and queen met for the last time on the 14th of July, 
1531. Until that period, some outward show of respect- and 
kindness had been maintained between them ; but the king then 
ordered her to repair to a private residence, and no longer to 
consider herself as his lawful wife. " To which the virtuous and 
mourning queen replied no more than this, that to whatever 
place she removed, nothing could remove her from being the 
king's wife. And so they bid each other farewell, and from this 
time the king never saw her more. * He married Anna Bullen 
in 1532, while the decision relating to his former marriage was 
still pending. The sentence of divorce, to which Katherine never 
would submit, was finally pronounced by Cranmer in 1533 ; and 
the unhappy queen, whose health had been gradually declining 
through these troubles of heart, died January 29, 1536, in the 
fiftieth year of her age. 

Thus the action of the play of Henry VIII. includes events 
which occurred from the impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham 
in 1521, to the death of Katherine in 1536. In making the 
death of Katherine precede the birth of Queen Elizabeth, Sbakspeare 
has committed an anachronism, not only pardonable but necessary. 
We must remember that the construction of the play required a 
happy termination ; and that the birth of Elizabeth, before or 
after the death of Katherine, involved the question of her legitimacy. 
By this slight deviation from the real course of events, Shakspeare 
has not perverted historic facts, but merely sacrificed them to a 
higher principle ; and in doing so has not only preserved dramatic 
propriety, and heightened the poetical interest, but has given a 
.strong proof both of his delicacy and his judgment. 

If we also call to mind that in this play Katherine is properly 
the heroine, and exhibited from first to last as the very " queen 
of earthly queens ; " that the whole interest is thrown round her and 
Wolsey — the one the injured rival, the other the enemy of Anna 

•Hall's Chronicle. 



KATHERINE OF A R R A G O N . 303 

Bullen — and that it was written in the reign and for the court 
of Elizabeth, we shall yet farther appreciate the moral greatness 
of the poet's mind, which disdained to sacrifice justice and the 
truth of nature to any time-serving expediency. 

Schlegel observes somewhere, that in the literal accuracy and 
apparent artlessness with which Shakspeare has adapted some of 
(he events and characters of history to his dramatic purposes, he 
has shown equally his genius and his wisdom. This, like most 
of Schlegel's remarks, is profound and true ; and in this respect 
Katherine of Arragon may rank as the triumph of Shakspeare's 
genius and wisdom. There is nothing in the whole range of 
poetical fiction in any respect resembling or approaching her ; there 
is nothing comparable, I suppose, but Katherine's own portrait by 
Holbein, which, equally true to the life, is yet as far inferior as 
Katherine's person was inferior to her mind. Not only has 
Shakspeare given us here a delineation as faithful as it is beautiful, 
of a peculiar modification of character; but he has bequeathed 
us a precious moral lesson in this proof that virtue alone — 
(by which I mean here the union of truth or conscience with 
benevolent affection — the one the highest law, the other the purest 
impulse of the soul), that such virtue is a sufficient source of the 
deepest pathos and power without any mixture of foreign or 
external ornament ; for who but Shakspeare would have brought 
before us a queen and a heroine of tragedy, stripped her of all 
pomp of place and circumstance, dispensed with all the usual 
sources of poetical interest, as youth, beauty, grace, fancy, 
commanding intellect ; and without any appeal to our imagination, 
without any violation of historical truth, or any sacrifices of the 
other dramatic personages for the sake of effect, could depend on 
the moral principle alone, to touch the very springs of feeling in 
our bosoms, and melt and elevate our hearts through the purest 
and holiest impulses of our nature ! 

The character, when analysed, is, in the first place, distinguished 
by truth. I do not only mean its truth to nature, or its relative 
truth arising from its historic fidelity and dramatic consistency, but 
truth as a quality of the soul ; this is the basis of the character. 
We often hear it remarked that those who are themselves perfectly 



304 K A T H E R I N E OF ARRAGON. 

true and artless, are in this world the more easily and frequently 
deceived — a common-place fallacy : for we shall ever find that truth 
is as undeceived as it is undeceiving, and that those who are true to 
themselves and others, may now and then be mistaken, or in 
cular instances duped by the intervention of some other affection 
or quality of the mind ; but they are generally free from illusion, and 
they are seldom imposed upon in the long run by the shows of 
things and superfices of characters. It is by this integrity of heart 
and clearness of understanding, this light of truth within her own 
soul, and not through any acuteness of intellect, that Katherine 
detects and exposes the real character of Wolsey, though unable 
either to unravel his designs, or defeat them. 

My lord, my lord, 
I am a simple woman, much too weak 
T' oppose your cunning. 

She rather intuitively feels than knows his duplicity, and in the 
dignity of her simplicity she towers above his arrogance as much as 
she scorns his crooked policy. With this essential truth are combined 
many other qualities, natural or acquired, all made out with the 
same uncompromising breadth of execution and fidelity of pencil, 
united with the utmost delicacy of feeling. For instance, the 
apparent contradiction arising from the contrast between {Catherine's 
natural disposition and the situation in which she is placed ; her 
lofty Castilian pride and her extreme simplicity of language and 
deportment; the inflexible resolution with which she asserts her right, 
and her soft resignation to unkindness and wrong ; her warmth of 
temper breaking through the meekness of a spirit subdued by a deep 
sense of religion ; and a degree of austerity tinging her real 
benevolence ; — all these qualities, opposed yet harmonising, has 
Shakspeare placed before us in a few admirable scenes. 

Katherine is at first introduced as pleading before the king in 
behalf of the commonalty, who had been driven by the extortions 
of Wolsey into some illegal excesses. In this scene, which is 
true to history, we have her upright reasoning mind, her steadiness 
of purpose, her piety and benevolence, placed in a strong light. 



KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 305 

The unshrinking dignity with which she opposes without descending 
to brave the Cardinal, the .stern rebuke addressed to the Duke of 
Buckingham's surveyor, are finely characteristic ; and by thus 
exhibiting Katherine as invested with all her conjugal rights and 
influence, and royal state, the subsequent situations are rendered 
more impressive. She is placed in the first instance on such a 
height in our esteem and reverence, that in the midst of her 
abandonment and degradation, and the profound pity she afterwards 
inspires, the first effect remains unimpaired, and she never falls 
beneath it. 

In the beginning of the second act we are prepared for the 
proceedings of the divorce, and our respect for Katherine heightened 
by the general sympathy for " the good queen," as she is expressly 
entitled, and by the following beautiful eulogium on her character 
uttered by the Duke of Norfolk. 



He (Wolsey) counsels a divorce — the loss of her 
That like a jewel hath hung twenty years 
About his neck, yet never lost her lustre. 
Of her that loves him with that excellence 
That angels love good men with. Even of her, 
That when the greatest stroke of fortune falls, 
Will bless the King ! 



The scene in which Anna Bullen is introduced as expressing hei 
grief and sympathy for her royal mistress is exquisitely graceful. 



Here's the pang that pinches : 
His highness having liv'd so long with her, and she 
So good a lady, that no tongue could ever 
Pronounce dishonor of her, — by my life 
She never knew harm doing. O now, after 
So many courses of the sun enthron'd, 
Still growing in a majesty and pomp, — the which 
To leave is a thousand-fold more bitter, than 
'Tis sweet at first to acquire. After this process, 
To give her the avaunt ! it is a pity 
Would move a monster. 
39 



KATHERINE OF ARRAGON 



OLD LADY. 



Hearts of most hard temper 
Melt and lament for her. 



O God's will ! much better 
She ne'er had known pomp : though it be temporal, 
Yet if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce 
It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance, panging 
As soul and body's severing. 

OLD LADY. 

Alas, poor lady ! 
She's a stranger now again. 



So much the more 
Must pity drop upon her. Verily, 
I swear 'tis better to be lowly born, 
And range with humble livers in content, 
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief, 
And wear a golden sorrow. 

How completely, in the few passages appropriated to Anna Bullen, 
is her character portrayed ! with what a delicate and yet luxuriant 
grace is she sketched off, with her gaiety and her heauty, her 
levity, her extreme mobility, her sweetness of disposition, her 
tenderness of heart, and, in short, all her femalities ! How nobly 
has Shakspeare done justice to the two women, and heightened our 
interest in both, by placing the praises of Katherine in the mouth 
of Anna Bullen ! and how characteristic of the latter, that she 
should first express unbounded pity for her mistress, insisting chiefly 
on her fall from her regal state and worldly pomp, thus betraying 
her own disposition : — 

For she that had all the fair parts of woman, 
Had, too, a woman's heart, which ever yet 
Affected eminence, wealth, and sovereignty. 



KATHERINE OF A it it A G U . 307 

That she should call the loss of temporal pomp once enjoyed, 
' ; a sufferance equal to soul and body's severing ; " that she should 
immediately protest that she would not herself be a queen — "No, 
good troth! not for all the riches under heaven!" — and not long 
afterwards ascend without reluctance that throne and bed from 
which her royal mistress had been so cruelly divorced! — how 
natural! The portrait is not less true and masterly than that of 
Katherine; but the character is overborne by the superior moral 
firmness and intrinsic excellence of the latter. That we may be 
more fully sensible of this contrast, the beautiful scene just alluded 
to immediately precedes Katherine's trial at Blackfriars, and the 
description of Anna Bullen's triumphant beauty at her coronation 
is placed immediately before the dying scene of Katherine ; yet 
with equal good taste and good feeling Shakspeare has constantly 
avoided all personal collision between the two characters; nor 
does Anna Bullen ever appear as queen except in the pageant of 
the procession, which in reading the play is scarcely noticed. 

To return to Katherine. The whole of the trial scene is given 
nearly verbatim from the old chronicles and records; but the dryness 
and harshness of the law proceedings is tempered at once and 
elevated by the genius and the wisdom of the poet. It appears, 
on referring to the historical authorities, that when the affair was 
first agitated in council, Katherine replied to the long expositions 
and theological sophistries of her opponents with resolute simplicity 
and composure: — "I am a woman, and lack wit and learning to 
answer these opinions; but I am sure that neither the king's 
father, nor my father, would have condescended to our marriage, if 
it had been judged unlawful. As to your saying that I should 
put the cause to eight persons of this realm, for quietness of the 
king's conscience, I pray Heaven to send his Grace a quiet 
conscience : and this shall be your answer, that I say I am his 
lawful wife, and to him lawfully married; though net worthy of 
it ; and in this point I will abide, till the court of Rome, which 
was privy to the beginning, have made a final ending of it. " * 

Katherine's appearance in the court at Blackfriars, attended by 

•Hall's Chronicle, p. 751. 



308 KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 

a noble troop of ladies and prelates of her counsel, and her 
refusal to answer the citation, are historical.* Her speech to the 
king- 
Sir, I beseech you do me right and justice, 
And to bestow your pity on me, &c, &c, 

is taken word for word (as nearly as the change from prone to 
blank verse would allow) from the old record in Hall. It would 
have been easy for Shakspeare to have exalted his own skill, by 
throwing a coloring of poetry and eloquence into this speech, 
without altering the sense or sentiment; but by adhering to the 
calm argumentative simplicity of manner and diction natural to the 
woman, he has preserved the truth of character without lessening 
the pathos of the situation. Her challenging Wolsey as a 
" foe to truth," and her very expressions, " I utterly refuse — 
yea, from my soul abhor you for my judge," are taken from fact. 
The sudden burst of indignant passion towards the close of the 
scene, 

In one who ever yet 
Had stood to charity, and displayed the effects 
Of disposition gentle, and of wisdom 
O'ertopping woman's power ; 

is taken from nature, though it occurred on a different occasion, f 

Lastly, the circumstance of her being called back after she had 

appealed from the court and angrily refusing to return, is from 

the life. Master Griffith, on whose arm she leaned, observed that 



* The court at Blackfriars sat on the 28th of May, 1529. "The queen being 
called, accompanied by the four bishops and others of her counsel, and a great 
company of ladies and gentlewomen following her; and after her obeisance, sadly and 
with great gravity, she appealed from them to the Court of Rome." — See Hall and 
Cavendishes Life of Wolsey. 

The account which Hume gives of this scene is very elegant: but after the affect- 
ing naivete" of the old chroniclers it is very cold and unsatisfactory. 

f The queen answered the Duke of Suffolk very highly and obstinately, with many 
high words : and suddenly, in a fury, she departed from him into her privy chamber." 
— Vide Hall's Chronicle. 



KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 309 

she was called : " On, on," quoth she ; " it maketh no matter, 
for it is no indifferent court for me, therefore I will not tarry. 
Go on your ways. " * 

King Henry's own assertion, " I dare to say, my lords, that 
for her womanhood, wisdom, nobility, and gentleness, never 
prince had such another wife, and therefore if I would willingly 
change her I were not wise," is thus beautifully paraphrased by 
Shakspeare : — 

That man i' the world who shall report he has 
A better wife, let him in nought be trusted 
For speaking false in that ! Thou art alone, 
If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness 
(Thy meekness, saint-like, wife-like government, 
Obeying in commanding; and thy parts, 
Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out), 
The queen of earthly queens. She's nobly born, 
And like her true nobility she has 
Carried herself towards me. 

The annotators on Shakspeare have all observed the close 
resemblance between this fine passage — 

Sir, 
I am about to weep, but thinking that 
We are a queen, or long have dreamed so, certain 
The daughter of a king — my drops of tears 
I '11 turn to sparks of fire. 

and the speech of Hermione — 

I am not prone to weeping as our sex 
Commonly are, the want of which vain dew 
Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have 
That honorable grief lodged here, which burns 
Worse than tears drown. 



•Vide Cavendish's Life of Wolsey 



310 KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 

But these verbal gentlemen do not seem to have felt that the 
resemblance is merely on the surface, and that the two passages 
could not possibly change places, without a manifest violation of 
the truth of character. In Hermione it is pride of sex merely : 
in Katherine it is pride of place and pride of birth. Hermione, 
though so superbly majestic, is perfectly independent of her regal 
state : Katherine, though so meekly pious, will neither forget hers, 
nor allow it to be forgotten by others for a moment. Hermione, 
when deprived of that " crown and comfort of her life," her 
husband's love, regards all things else with despair and indifference 
except her female honor : Katherine, divorced and abandoned, still 
with true Spanish pride stands upon respect, and will not bate 
one atom of her accustomed state. 

Though unqueened, yet like a queen, 
And daughter to a king, inter me ' 

The passage — 

A fellow of the royal bed, that owns 

A moiety of the throne — a great king's daughter, 

here standing 

To prate and talk for life and honor 'fore 
Who please to come to hear,* 

would apply nearly to both queens, yet a single sentiment — nay a 
single sentence — could not possibly be transferred from one character 
to the other. The magnanimity, the noble simplicity, the purity 
of heart, the resignation in each — how perfectly equal in degree ! 
how diametrically opposite in kind ! f 

* Winter's Tale, act iii., scene 2. 

t I have constantly abstained from considering any of these characters with a 
nee to the theatre; yet I cannot help remarking, that if Mrs. Siddons, who 
excelled equally in Hermione and Katherine, and threw such majesty of demi 
such power, such picturesque effect, into both, could likewise feel and convey the 
infinite contrast between the ideal grace, the classical repose and imaginative charm 
thrown round Hermione, and the matter-of-fact, artless, prosaic nature of Katherine; 
between the poetical grandeur of the former, and the moral dignity of the latter, — 



KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 311 

Once more to return to Katherine. 

We are told by Cavendish, that when Wolsey and Campeggio 
visited the queen by the king's order, she was found at work 
among her women, and came forth to meet the cardinals with a 
skein of white thread hanging about her neck; that when Wolsey 
addressed her in Latin, she interrupted him, saying, "Nay, good 
my lord, speak to me in English, I beseech you ; although I 
understand Latin. " " Forsooth then," quoth my lord, " madam, 
if it please your grace, we come both to know your mind, how 
ye be disposed to do in this matter between the king and you, 
and also to declare secretly our opinions and our counsel unto 
you, which we have intended of very zeal and obedience that we 
bear to your grace. " " My lords, I thank you then," quoth she, 
"of your good wills; but to make answer to your request I 
cannot so suddenly, for I was set among my maidens at work, 
thinking full little of any such matter; wherein there needeth a 
longer deliberation, and a better head than mine to make answer 
to so noble wise men as ye be. I had need of good counsel in 
this case, which toucheth me so near ; and for any counsel or 
friendship that I can find in England, they are nothing to my 
purpose or profit. Think you, I pray you, my lords, will any 
Englishmen counsel, or be friendly unto me against the king's 
pleasure, they being his subjects! Nay, forsooth, my lords! and 
for my counsel, in whom I do intend to put my trust, they be 
not here ; they be in Spain, in my native country. * Alas ! 
my lords, I am a poor woman lacking both wit and understanding 
sufficiently to answer such approved wise men as ye be both, in 
so weighty a matter. I pray you to extend your good and 

then she certainly exceeded all that I could have imagined possible, even to // r 
wonderful powers. 

* This affecting passage is thus rendered by Shakspcare : 

Nay, forsooth, my friends, 
They that must weigh out my afflictions — 
They that my trust must grow to, live not here — 
They are, as all my other comforts, far hence, 
In mine own country, lords. 

Henry III . act iii., sc. 1. 



312 KATHERINEOFARRAGON. 

indifferent minds in your authority unto me, for I am a simple 
woman, destitute and barren of friendship and counsel, here in a 
foreign region ; and as for your counsel, I will not refuse, but be 
glad to hear. " 

It appears, also, that when the Archbishop of York and Bishop 
Tunstall waited on her at her house near Huntingdon, with the 
sentence of the divorce, signed by Henry, and confirmed by act 
of parliament, she refused to admit its validity, she being Henry's 
wife, and not his subject. The bishop describes her conduct in 
his letter : " She being therewith in great choler and agony, and 
always interrupting our words, declared that she would never leave 
the name of queen, but would persist in accounting herself the 
king's wife till death. " When the official letter containing 
minutes of their conference, was shown to her, she seized a pen, 
and dashed it angrily across every sentence in which she was 
styled Princess-dowager. 

If we now turn to that inimitable scene between Katherine 
and the two cardinals (act iii., scene 1), we shall observe how 
finely Shakspeare has condensed these incidents, and unfolded to us 
all the workings of Katherine's proud yet feminine nature. She 
is discovered at work with some of her women — she calls for 
music " to soothe her soul, grown sad with troubles" — then follows 
the little song, of which the sentiment is so well adapted to the 
occasion, while its quaint yet classic elegance breathes the very 
spirit of those times, when Surry loved and sung. 

SONG. 

Orpheus with his lute made trees, 
And the mountain-tops that freeze, 

Bow themselves when he did sing : 
To his music plants and flowers 
Ever sprung, as sun and showers 

There had made a lasting spring. 

Everything that heard him play, 
Even the billows of the sea, 

Hung their heads and then lay by. 
In sweet music is such art, 



KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 313 

Killing care, and grief of heart, 
Fall asleep, on hearing, die. 

They are interrupted by the arrival of the two cardinals. 
Katherine's perception of their subtlety — her suspicion of their 
purpose — her sense of her own weakness and inability to contend 
with them, and her mild subdued dignity, are beautifully 
represented ; as also the guarded self-command with which she 
eludes giving a definitive answer ; but when they counsel her to 
that which she, who knows Henry, feels must end in her ruin, 
then the native temper is roused at once, or, to use Tunstall's 
expression, " the choler and the agony" burst forth in words. 

Is this your christian counsel ? Out upon ye ! 
Heaven is above all yet; there sits a Judge 
That no king can corrupt. 

WOLSEY. 

Your rage mistakes us. 

QUEEN KATHERINE. 

The more shame for ye ! Holy men I thought ye, 
Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues; 
But cardinal sins, and hollow hearts, I fear ye : 
Mend them, for shame, my lords : is this your comfort, 
The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady ? 

With the same force of language and impetuous yet dignified 
feeling, she asserts her own conjugal truth and merit, and insists 
upon her rights. 

Have I liv'd thus long (let me speak myself, 
Since virtue finds no friends), a wife, a true one, 
A woman (I dare say, without vain glory), 
Never yet branded with suspicion ? 
Have I with all my full affections 
Still met the king — lov'd him next heaven, obey'd him! 
Been out of fondness superstitious to him — 
Almost forgot my prayers to content him, 
And am I thus rewarded? 'tis not well, lords, &c 
40 



314 KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 

My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty, 
To give up willingly that noble title 
Your master wed me to: nothing but death 
Shall e'er divorce my dignities. 

And this burst of unwonted passion is immediately followed by 
Ihe natural reaction ; it subsides into tears, dejection, and a mournfu. 
self-compassion. 

Would I had never trod this English ground, 

Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it. 

What will become of me now, wretched lady? 

I am the most unhappy woman living. 

Alas ! poor wenches ! where are now your fortunes ? 

[To her women. 
Shipwrecked upon a kingdom, where no pity, 
No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me ! 
Almost no grave allowed me ! Like the lily that once 
Was mistress of the field, and flourish'd, 
I '11 hang my head and perish. 

Dr. Johnson observes on this scene, that all [Catherine's distresses 
could not save her from a quibble on the word cardinal. 

Holy men I thought ye, 
Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues ; 
But cardinal sins, and hollow hearts, I fear ye ! 

When we read this passage in connection with, the situation and 
sentiment, the scornful play upon the words is not only appropriate 
and natural, it seems inevitable. Katherine, assuredly, is neither 
an imaginative nor a witty personage ; but we all acknowledge 
the truism, that anger inspires wit, and whenever there is passion 
there is poetry. In the instance just alluded to, the sarcasm springs 
out from the bitter indignation of the moment. In her grand 
rebuke of Wolsey, in the trial scene, how just and beautiful is the 
gradual elevation 0/ her language, till it rises into that magnificent 
image — 



RATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 315 

You have by fortune and his highness' favors, 
Gone slightly o'er low steps, and now are mounted, 
Where powers are your retainers, &c. 

In the depth of her affliction, the pathos as naturally clothes 
itself in poetry. 

Like the lily, 
That once was mistress of the field, and flourish'd, 
I'll hang my head and perish. 

But these, I believe, are the only instances of imngery throughout ; 
for, in general, her language is plain and energetic. It has the 
strength and simplicity of her character, with very little metaphor, 
and less wit. 

In approaching the last scene of Katherine's life, I feel as 
if about to tread within a sanctuary, where nothing befits us but 
silence and tears ; veneration so strives with compassion, tenderness 
with awe. * 

We must suppose a long interval to have elapsed since Katherine's 
interview with the two cardinals. Wolsey was disgraced, and 
poor Anna Bullen at the height of her short-lived prosperity. It 
was Wolsey's fate to be detested by both queens. In the pursuance 
of his own selfish and ambitious designs, he had treated both with 



* Dr. Johnson is of opinion, that this scene " is above any other part of Shaks- 
peare's tragedies, and perhaps above any scene of any other poet, tender and 
palhetic; without gods, or furies, or poisons, or precipices; without the help of 
romantic circumstances ; without improbable sallies of poetical lamentation, and 
without any throes of tumultuous misery." 

1 have already observed, that in judging of Shakspeare's characters as of persons 
we meet in real life, we are swayed unconsciously by our own habits and feelings, 
and our preference governed, more or less, by our individual prejudices or 
sympathies. Thus, Dr. Johnson, who has not a word to bestow on Imogen, and 
who has treated poor Juliet as if he had been in truth " the very beadle to an 
amorous sigh," does full justice to the character of Katherine, because the logical 
turn cf his mind, his vigorous intellect, and his austere integrity, enabled him to 
appreciate its peculiar beauties : and, accordingly, we find that he gives it, not only 
unqualified, but almost exclusive admiration: he goes so far as to assert, that in (hia 
play the genius of Shakspeare comes in and goes out with Katherine 



316 KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 

perfidy ; and one was the remote, the other the immediate cause 
of his ruin.* 

The ruffian king, of whom one hates to think, was tent on 
forcing Katherine to concede her rights, and illegitimize her 
daughter in favor of the offspring of Anna Bullen : she steadily 
refused, was declared contumacious, and the sentence of divorce 
pronounced in 1533. Such of her attendants as persisted in paying 
her the honors due to a queen were driven from her household ; 
those who consented to serve her as princess-dowager, she refused 
to admit into her presence; so that she remained unattended, 
except by a few women, and her gentleman usher, Griffith. 
During the last eighteen months of her life she resided at Kimbolton. 
Her nephew, Charles V., had offered her an asylum and princely 
treatment ; but Katherine, broken in heart, and declining in 
health, was unwilling to drag the spectacle of her misery and 
degradation into a strange country; she pined in her loneliness, 
deprived of her daughter, receiving no consolation from the pope, 
and no redress from the emperor. Wounded pride, wronged 
affection, and a cankering jealousy of the womrn preferred to her 
(which, though it never broke out into unseemly words, is enumerated 
as one of the causes of her death), at length wore out a feeble 
frame. " Thus," says the chronicle, " Queen Katherine fell into 
her last sickness; and though the king sent to comfort her through 
Chapuys, the emperor's ambassador, she grew worse and worse ; 
and finding death now coming, she caused a maid attending on 
her to write to the king to this effect : — 

" My most dear Lord, King, and Husband ; 
"The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, 
out of the love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, 
which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world 

•It will be remembered, that in early youth Anna Bullen was betrothed to Lord 
Henry Percy, who was passionately in love with her. Wolsey, to serve the king's 
purposes, broke off this match, and forced Percy into an unwilling marriage with Lady 
Mary Talbot. "The stout Earl of Northumberland," who arrested Wolsey at York, 
was this very Percy: he was chosen for this mission by the interference of Anna 
Bullen : — a piece of vengeance truly feminine in its mixture of sentiment and 
tpitefulness ; and every way characteristic of the individual woman. 



KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 317 

or flesh whatsoever ; for which yet you have cast me into many 
calamities, and yourself into many troubles: but I forgive you all, 
and pray God to do so likewise ; for the rest, I commend unto 
yon, Mary our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to 
her, as I have heretofore desired. I must intreat you also to 
respect my maids, and give them in marriage, which is not much, 
they being but three, and all my other servants a year's pay 
besides their due, lest otherwise they be unprovided for ; lastly, I 
make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. — 
Farewell ! " * 

She also wrote another letter to the ambassador, desiring that 
he would remind the king of her dying request, and urge him to 
do her this last right. 

What the historian relates Shakspeare realizes. On the wonderful 
beauty of Katherine's closing scene we need not dwell ; for that 
requires no illustration. In transferring the sentiments of her 
letter to her lips, Shakspeare has given them added grace, and 
pathos, and tenderness, without injuring their truth and simplicity: 
the feelings, and almost the manner of expression are Katherine's 
own. The severe justice with which she draws the character of 
Wolsey is extremely characteristic ! The benign candor with which 
she listens to the praise of him " whom living she most hated," 
is not less so. How beautiful her religious enthusiasm ! — the slumber 
which visits her pillow, as she listens to that sad music she called 
her knell ; her awakening from a vision of celestial joy to find 
herself still on earth — 

Spirits of peace ! where are ye ? are ye gone, 
And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye ? 

how unspeakably beautiful ! And to consummate all in cne final 
touch of truth and nature, we see that consciousness of her own 
worth and integrity which had sustained her through all her trials 



• The king is said to have wept on reading this letter, and her body being interred 
at Peterbro', in the monastery, for honor of her memory it was preserved at the 
dissolution, and erected into a bishop's see.— Herbert's Life of Henry VIII 



318 KATHERINE OF ARRAGON. 

of heart, and that pride of station for which she had contended 
through long years, — which had become more dear by opposition, 
and by the perseverance with which she had asserted it, — 
remaining the last strong feeling upon her mind, to the very last 
hour of existence. 

When I am dead, good wench, 
Let me be used with honor: strew me over 
With maiden flowers, that all the world may know 
I was a chaste wife to my grave ; embalm me, 
Then lay me forth : although unqueen'd, yet like 
A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me. 
I can no more — 

In the epilogue to this play,* it is recommended — 

To the merciful construction of good women, 
For such a one we show'd them : 

alluding to the character of Queen Katherine. Shakspeare has, in 
fact, placed before us a queen and a heroine, who in the first 
place, and above all, is a good woman ; and I repeat, that in 
doing so, and in trusting for all his effect to truth and virtue, he 
has given a sublime proof of his genius and ' his wisdom ; — for 
which, among many other obligations, we women remain his debtors 



• Written (as the commentators suppose), not by Shakspeare, but by Ben Jonson 



LADY MACBETH. 



I doubt whether the epithet historical can properly apply to the 
character of Lady Macbeth ; for though the subject of the play 
be taken from history, we never think of her with any reference 
to historical associations, as we do with regard to Constance, 
Volumnia, Katherine of Arragon, and others. I remember reading 
some critique, in which Lady Macbeth was styled the " Scottish 
queen;" and methought the title, as applied to her, sounded like 
a vulgarism. It appears that the real wife of Macbeth, — she who 
lives only in the obscure record of an obscure age, bore the 
very unmusical appellation of Graoch, and was instigated to the 
murder of Duncan, not only by ambition, but by motives of vengeance. 
She was the grand-daughter of Kenneth the Fourth, killed in 
1003, fighting against Malcolm the Second, the father of Duncan. 
Macbeth reigned over Scotland from the year 1039 to 1056 ; — 
but what is all this to the purpose 1 The sternly magnificent 
creation of the poet stands before us independent of all these aids 
of fancy ; she is Lady Macbeth ; as such she lives, she reigns, and is 
immortal in the world to imagination. What earthly title could add 
to her grandeur 1 what human record or attestation could strengthen 
our impression of her reality 1 

Characters in history move before us like a procession of figures 
in basso relievo: we see one side only, that which the artist chose 
to exhibit to us; the rest is sunk in the block: the same characters 



320 LADY MACBETH. 

in Shakspeare are like the statues cut out of the block, fashioned, 
finished, tangible in every part : we may consider them under every 
aspect, we may examine them on every side. As the classical times, 
when the garb did not make the man, were peculiarly favorable to 
the development and delineation of the human form, and have 
handed down to us the purest models of strength and grace — so the 
times in which Shakspeare lived were favorable to the vigorous 
delineation of natural character. Society was not then one vast 
conventional masquerade of manners. In his revelations, the 
accidental circumstances are to the individual character, what the 
drapery of the antique statue is to the statue itself; it is evident, 
that, though adapted to each other, and studied relatively, they were 
also studied separately. We trace through the folds the fine and 
true proportions of the figure beneath : they seem and are independent 
of each other to the practised eye, though carved together from Ihe 
same enduring substance; at once perfectly distinct and eternally 
inseparable. In history we can but study character in relation to 
events, to situation and circumstances, which disguise and encumber 
it : we are left to imagine, to infer, what certain people must have 
been, from the manner in which they have acted or suffered. 
Shakspeare and nature bring us back to the true order of things; 
and showing us what the human being is, enable us to judge of 
the possible as well as the positive result in acting and suffering. 
Here, instead of judging the individual by his actions, we are enabled 
to judge of actions by a reference to the individual. When we can 
carry this power into the experience of real life, we shall perhaps be 
more just to one another, and not consider ourselves aggrieved, 
because we cannot gather figs from thistles and grapes from thorns. 
In the play or poem of Macbeth, the interest of the story is so 
engrossing, the events so rapid and so appalling, the accessories so 
sublimely conceived and so skilfully combined, that it is difficult to 
detach Lady Macbeth from the dramatic situation, or consider her 
apart from the terrible associations of our first and earliest 
impressions. As the vulgar idea of a Juliet — that all beautiful and 
heaven-gifted child of the south — is merely a love-sick girl in white 
satin, so the common-place idea of Lady Macbeth, though endowed 
with the rarest powers, the loftiest energies, and the profoundesf 



LADY MACBETH. 321 

affections, is nothing but a fierce, cruel woman, brandishing a couple 
of daggers, and inciting her husband to butcher a poor old king. 

Even those who reflect more deeply are apt to consider rather the 
mode in which a certain character is manifested, than the combination 
of abstract qualities making up that individual human being ; so 
what should be last, is first ; effects are mistaken for causes, qualities 
are confounded with their results, and the perversion of what is 
essentially good, with the operation of positive evil. Hence it is, 
that those who can feel and estimate the magnificent conception and 
poetical development of the character, have overlooked the grand 
moral lesson it conveys; they forget that the crime of Lady Macbeth 
terrifies us in proportion as we sympathize with her ; and that this 
sympathy is in proportion to the degree of pride, passion, and 
intellect, we may ourselves possess. It is good to behold and to 
tremble at the possible result of the noblest faculties uncontrolled or 
perverted. True it is, that the ambitious women of these civilized 
times do not murder sleeping kings : but are there, therefore, no Lady 
Macbeths in the world 1 no women who, under the influence of a / 
diseased or excited appetite for power or distinction, would sacrifice 
the happiness of a daughter, the fortunes of a husband, the principles 
?f a son, and peril their own souls ? 

#**=***■** 

The character of Macbeth is considered as one of the most 
complex in the whole range of Shakspeare's dramatic creations. 
He is represented in the course of the action under such a variety of 
aspects ; the good and evil qualities of his mind are so poised and 
blended, and instead of being gradually and successively developed, 
evolve themselves so like shifting lights and shadows playing over 
the "unstable waters," that his character has afforded a continual 
and interesting subject of analysis and contemplation. None of 
Shakspeare's personages have been treated of more at large ; none 
have been more minutely criticised and profoundly examined. A 
single feature in his character — the question, for instance, as to 
whether his courage be personal or constitutional, or excited by 
mere desperation — has been canvassed, asserted, and refuted, in two 
masterly essays. 

On the other hand, the character of Lady Macbeth resolves 
41 



322 LADY MACBETH. 

itself into few and simple elements. The grand features of her 
character are so distinctly and prominently marked, that, though 
acknowledged to be one of the poet's most sublime creations, she 
has been passed over with comparatively few words : generally 
speaking, the commentators seem to have considered Lady Macbeth, 
rather with reference to her husband, and as influencing the action 
of the drama, than as an individual conception of amazing power, 
poetry, and beauty : or if they do individualize her, it is ever 
with those associations of scenic representation which Mrs. 
Siddons has identified with the character. Those who have been 
accustomed to see it arrayed in the forms and lineaments of that 
magnificent woman, and developed with her wonder-working powers, 
seem satisfied to leave it there, as if nothing more could be said 
or added. * 

But the generation which beheld Mrs. Siddons in her glory, is 
passing away, and we are again left to our own unassisted feelings, 
or to all the satisfaction to be derived from the sagacity of 
critics and the reflections of commentators. Let us turn to them 
for a moment. 

Dr. Johnson, who seems to have regarded her as nothing better 
than a kind of ogress, tells us in so many words, that " Lady 
Macbeth is merely detested. " Schlegel dismisses her in haste as 
a species of female fury. In the two essays on Macbeth already 
mentioned, she is passed over with one or two slight allusions. 
The only justice that has yet been done to her is by Hazlitt, in 
the " Characters of Shakspeare's Plays. " Nothing can be finer 
than his remarks as far as they go, but his plan did not allow 
him sufficient space to work out his own conception of the 
character, with the minuteness it requires. All that he says is 
just in sentiment, and most eloquent in the expression ; but in 



* Mrs. Siddons left among her papers an analysis of the character of Lady 
Macbeth, which I have never seen : but I have heard her say, that after playing the 
part for thirty years, she never read it over without discovering in it something new. 
She had an idea that Lady Macbeth must from her Celtic origin have been a small, 
fair, blue-eyed woman. Bonduca, Fredegonde, Brunehault, and other Amazons of 
the gothic ages were of this complexion ; yet I cannot help fancying Lady Macbeth 
dark, like Black Agnes of Douglas— a sort of Lady Macbeth in her way. 



LADY MACBETH. 323 

leaving some of the finest points altogether untouched, he has also 
left us in doubt whether he even felt or perceived them ; and 
this masterly criticism stops short of the whole truth — it is a little 
superficial, and a little too harsh. 

In the mind of Lady Macbeth, ambition is represented as the 
ruling motive, an intense over-mastering passion, which is gratified 
at the expense of every just and generous principle, and every 
feminine feeling. In the pursuit of her object, she is cruel, 
treacherous, and daring. She is doubly, trebly dyed in guilt and 
blood ; for the murder she instigates is rendered more frightful by 
disloyalty and ingratitude, and by the violation of all the most 
sacred claims of kindred and hospitality. When her husband's 
more kindly nature shrinks from the perpetration of the deed of 
horror, she, like an evil genius, whispers him on to his damnation. 
The full measure of her wickedness is never disguised, the magnitude 
and atrocity of her crime is never extenuated, forgotten, or forgiven, 
in the whole course of the play. Our judgment is not bewildered, nor 
our moral feeling insulted, by the sentimental jumble of great crimes 
and dazzling virtues, after the fashion of the German school, and of 
some admirable writers of our own time. Lady Macbeth's amazing 
power of intellect, her inexorable determination of purpose, her super- 
human strength of nerve, render her as fearful in herself as her deeds 
are hateful ; yet she is not a mere monster of depravity, with whom 
we have nothing in common, nor a meteor whose destroying path 
we watch in ignorant affright and amaze. She is a terrible 
impersonation cf evil passions and mighty powers, never so far 
removed from our own nature as to be cast beyond the pale of 
our sympathies ; for the woman herself remains a woman to the 
last — still linked with her sex and with humanity. 

This impression is produced partly by the essential truth in the 
conception of the character, and partly by the manner in which 
it is evolved ; by a combination of minute and delicate touches, 
in some instances by speech, in others by silence ; at one time 
Dy what is revealed, at another by what we are left to infer. 
As in real life, we perceive distinctions in character we cannot 
always explain, and receive impressions for which we cannot 
always account, without going back to the beginning of an 



324 LADY MACBETH. 

acquaintance, and recalling many and trifling circumstances — looks, 
and tones, and words; thus to explain that hold which Lady 
Macbeth, in the midst of all her atrocities, still keeps upon 
our feelings, it is necessary to trace minutely the action of the 
play, as far as she is concerned in it, from its very commencement 
to its close. 

We must then bear in mind, that the first idea of murdering 
Duncan is not suggested by Lady Macbeth to her husband; 
it springs within his mind, and is revealed to us, before his 
first interview with his wife, — before she is introduced or even 
alluded to. 



This supernatural soliciting 
Cannot be ill ; cannot be good. If ill, 
Why hath it given me earnest of success, 
Commencing in a truth ? I am thane of Cawdor — 
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion, 
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, 
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, 
Against the use of nature ? 

It will be said, that the same "horrid suggestion" presents 
itself spontaneously to her, on the reception of his letter ; or 
rather, that the letter itself acts upon her mind as the prophecy 
I of the Weird Sisters on the mind of her husband, kindling 
the latent passion for empire into a quenchless flame. We are 
prepared to see the train of evil, first lighted by hellish 
agency, extend itself to her through the medium of her husband; 
but we are spared the more revolting idea that it originated 
with her. The guilt is thus more equally divided than we should 
suppose, when we hear people pitying " the noble nature of 
Macbeth," bewildered and goaded on to crime, solely or chiefly 
by the instigation of his wife. 

It is true that she afterwards appears the more active agent of 
the two ; but it is less through her pre-eminence in wickedness 
than through her superiority of intellect. The eloquence — the 
fierce, fervid eloquence with which she bears down the relenting 



LADY MACBETH. 32? 

and reluctant spirit of her husband, the dexterous sophistry with 
which she wards off his objections, her artful and affected doubts 
of his courage — the sarcastic manner in which she lets fall the 
word coward — a word which no man can endure from another, 
still less from a woman, and least of all from a woman he loves — 
and the bold address with which she removes all obstacles, silences 
all arguments, overpowers all scruples, and marshals the way before 
him, absolutely make us shrink before the commanding intellect of 
the woman, with a terror in which interest and admiration are 
strangely mingled. 

LADY MACBETH. 

He has almost supp'd : why have you left the chamber 1 

MACBETH. 

Hath he ask'd for me? 

LADY MACBETH. 

Know you not he has ? 



We will proceed no further in this business : 
He hath honored me of late, and I have bought 
Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, 
Not cast aside so soon. 

LADY MACBETH. 

Was the hope drunk, 
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since. 
And wakes it now to look so green and pale 
At what it did so freely? From this time 
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard 
To be the same in thine own act and valor, 
As thou art in desire? Would'st thou have that 
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, 
And live a coward in thine own esteem ; 
Letting I dare not wait upon I would, 
Like the poor cat i' the adage ? 



32o LADY MACBETH, 



Pr'ythee peace : 
I dare do all that may become a man ; 
Who dares do more is none. 

LADY MACBETH. 

What beast was it then, 
That made you break this enterprise to me ? 
Where you durst do it, there you were a man; 
And to be more than what you were, you would 
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place 
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both ; 
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now 
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know 
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: 
I would, while it were smiling in my face, 
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, 
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn, as you 
Have done to this. 

MACBETH'. 

If we should fail, 

LADY MACBETH. 

We fail.* 
But screw your courage to the sticking-place, 
And we '11 not fail. 

Again, in the murdering scene, the obdurate inflexibility of 
purpose with which she drives on Macbeth to the execution of 

* In her impersonation of the part of Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Siddons adopted 
successively three different intonations in giving the words wc fail. At first a quick 
contemptuous interrogation — " we fail?" Afterwards with the note of admiration — 
we fail.' and an accent of indignant astonishment, laying the principal emphasis on 
the word we — we fail ! Lastly, she fixed on what I am convinced is the true 
reading — we fail, with the simple period, modulating her voice to a deep, low, 
resolute tone, which settled the issue at once — as though she had said, " if we 
fail, why then we fail, and all is over. " This is consistent with the dark fatalism 
of the character and the sense of the line following, and the effect was sublime, 
almost awful 



LADY MACBETH. 327 

their project, and her masculine indifference to blood and death, 
would inspire unmitigated disgust and horror, but for the involuntary 
consciousness that it is produced rather by the exertion of a strong 
power over herself, than by absolute depravity of disposition and 
ferocity of temper. This impression of her character is brought 
home at once to our very hearts with the most profound knowledge 
of the springs of nature within us, the most subtle mastery over 
their various operations, and a feeling of dramatic effect not less 
wonderful. The very passages in which Lady Macbeth displays 
the most savage and relentless determination, are so worded as to 
fill the mind with the idea of sex, and place the woman before 
us in all her dearest attributes, at once softening and refining the 
horror, and rendering it more intense. Thus, when she reproaches 
her husband for his weakness — 

From this time 
Such I account thy love ! 

Again, 

Come to my woman's breasts, 
And take my milk for gaJl, ye murdering ministers, 
That no compunctious visitings of nature 
Shake my fell purpose, &c. 

1 have given suck, and know how tender 'tis 
To love the babe that milks me, &c. 

And lastly, in the moment of extremest horror comes that 
unexpected touch of feeling, so startling, yet so wonderfully true to 
nature. 

Had he not resembled my father as he slept, 
I had done it ! 

Thus in one of Weber's or Beethoven's grand symphonies, some 
unexpected soft minor chord or passage will steal on the ear, heard 
amid the magnificent crash of harmony, making the blood pause, 
and filling the eye with unbidden tears. 



328 LADYMACBETH. 

It is particularly observable, that in Lady Macbeth's concentrated, 
strong-nerved ambition, the ruling passion of her mind, there is 
yet a touch of womanhood : she is ambitious less for herself th an 
for her husband. It is fair to think this, because we have no 
reason to draw any other inference either from her words or 
actions. In her famous soliloquy, after reading her husband's 
letter, she does not once refer to herself. It is of him she thinks : 
she wishes to see her husband on the throne, and to place the 
sceptre within his grasp. The strength of her affections adds 
strength to her ambition. Although in the old story of Boethius 
we are told that the wife of Macbeth " burned with unquenchable 
desire to bear the name of queen," yet in the aspect under which 
Shakspeare has represented the character to us, the selfish part of 
this ambition is kept out of sight. We must remark also, that 
in Lady Macbeth's reflections on her husband's character, and on 
that milkiness of nature, which she fears "may impede him from 
the golden round," there is no indication of female scorn : there 
is exceeding pride, but no egotism in the sentiment or the 
expression ; — no want of wifely and womanly respect and love 
for him, but on the contrary, a sort of unconsciousness of her 
own mental superiority, which she betrays rather than asserts, 
as interesting in itself as it is most admirably conceived and 
delineated. 



Glamis thou art, and Cawdor ; and shalt be 

What thou art promised : — Yet do I fear thy nature ; 

It is too full o' the milk o' human kindness, 

To catch the nearest way. Thou would'st be great ; 

Art not without ambition ; but without 

The illness should attend it. What thou would'st highly, 

That would'st thou holily ; would'st not play false, 

And yet would'st wrongly win : thou'dst have, great Glamis, 

That which cries, This thou must do, if thou have it; 

And that which rather thou dost fear to do, 

Than wisliest should be undone. Hie thee hither, 

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, 

And chastise with the valor of my tongue 

All that impedes thee from the golden round, 



LADY MACBETH. 329 

Which fate and metaphysical* aid doth seem 
To have thee crowned withal. 



Nor is there anything vulgar in her ambition : as the strength 
of her affections lends to it something profound and concentrated, 
so her splendid imagination invests the object of her desire with 
its own radiance. We cannot trace in her grand and capacious 
mind that it is the mere baubles and trappings of royalty which 
dazzle and allure her: hers is the sin of the "star-bright 
apostate," and she plunges with her husband into the abyss of 
guilt, to procure for " all their days and nights sole sovereign 
sway and masterdom. " She revels, she luxuriates in her dream 
of power. She reaches at the golden diadem which is to sear 
her brain; she perils life and soul for its attainment, with an 
enthusiasm as perfect, a faith as settled as that of the martyr, 
who sees at the stake, heaven and its crowns of glory opening 
upon him. 

Great Glamis ! worthy Cawdor ! 
Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter ! 
Thy letters have transported me beyond 
This ignorant present, and I feel now 
The future in the instant ! 

This is surely the very rapture of ambition ! and those who 
have heard Mrs. Siddons pronounce the word hereafter, cannot 
forget the look, the tone, which seemed to give her auditors a 
glimpse of that awful future, which she, in her prophetic fury, 
beholds upon the instant. 

But to return to the text before us: Lady Macbeth having 
proposed the object to herself and arrayed it with an ideal glory, 
fixes her eye steadily upon it, soars far above all womanish 
feelings and scruples to attain it, and stoops upon her victim 
with the strength and velocity of a vulture ; but having committed 
unflinchingly the crime necessary for the attainment of her purpose, 



* Metaphysical is here used in the sense, of spiritual or preternatural. 
42 



330 LADY MACBETH. 

she stops there. After the murder of Duncan, we see Lady 
Macbeth, during the rest of the play, occupied in supporting the 
nervous weakness and sustaining the fortitude of her husband ; for 
instance, Macbeth is at one time on the verge of frenzy, between 
fear and horror, and it is clear that if she loses her self-command, 
both must perish. 

MACBETH. 

One cried, God help us ! and Amen ! the other, 
As they had seen me with these hangman's hand3 
Listening their fear, I could not say Amen! 
When they did cry God bless us ! 

LADY MACBETH. 

Consider it not so deeply! 



But wherefore could not I pronounce amen? 
I had most need of blessing, and amen 
Stuck in my throat. 

LADY MACBETH. 

These deeds must not be thought on 
After these ways : so, it will make us mad. 



Methought I heard a voice cry, 
" Sleep no more," &c, &c. 



LADY MACBETH. 



What do you mean ? who was it that thus cried ? 

Why, worthy Thane, 
You do unbend your noble strength to think 
So brainsickly of things. — Go, get some water, &c, &c. 

Afterwards in act iii she is represented as muttering to herself, 

Nought's had, all's spent, 
When our desire is got without content ; 



LADY MACBETH. 331 

yet immediately addresses her moody and conscience-stricken hus- 
band — 



How now, my lord? why do you keep alone, 
Of sorriest fancies your companions making; 
Using those thoughts, which should indeed have died 
With them they think on ? Things without remedy 
Should be without regard ; what 'a done, is done. 

But she is nowhere represented as urging him on to new crimes: 
so far from it, that when Macbeth darkly hints his purposed 
assassination of Banquo, and she inquires his meaning, he replies, 

Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, 
Till thou approve the deed. 

The same may be said of the destruction of Macduff's family. 
Every one must perceive how our detestation of the woman had 
been increased, if she had been placed before us as suggesting and 
abetting those additional cruelties into which Macbeth is hurried 
by his mental cowardice. 

If my feeling of Lady Macbeth's character be just to the 
conception of the poet, then she is one who could steel herself 
to the commission of a crime from necessity and expediency, and 
be daringly wicked for a great end, but not likely to perpetrate 
gratuitous murders from any vague or selfish fears. I do not 
mean to say that the perfect confidence existing between herself 
and Macbeth could possibly leave her in ignorance of his actions 
or designs ; that heart-broken and shuddering allusion to the 
murder of Lady Macduff (in the sleeping scene) proves the 
contrary : — 

The thane of Fife had a wife ; where is she now ? 

But she is nowhere brought before us in immediate connexion 
with these horrors, and we are spared any flagrant proof of her 
participation in them. This may not strike us at first, but most 
undoubtedly has an effect on the general bearing of the character, 
considered as a whole. 



332 LADY MACBETH. 

Another more obvious and pervading source of interest arises 
from that bond of entire affec'.ion and confidence, which, through 
the whole of this dreadful tissue of crime and its consequences, 
unites Macbeth and his wife ; claiming from us an involuntary 
respect and sympathy, and shedding a softening influence over the 
whole tragedy. Macbeth leans upon her strength, trusts in he 
fidelity, and throws himself on her tenderness. 

O full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife ! 

She sustains him, calms him, soothes him 



Come on ; 
Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks; 
Be bright and jovial 'mong your guests to-night. 



The endearing epithets, the terms of fondness in which he 
addresses her, and the tone of respect she invariably maintains 
towards him, even when most exasperated by his vacillation of 
mind and his brain-sick terrors, have by the very force of contrast 
a powerful effect on the fancy. 

By these tender redeeming touches we are impressed with a 
feeling that Lady Macbeth's influence over the affections of her 
husband, as a wife and a woman, is at least equal to her power 
over him as a superior mind. Another thing has always struck 
me. During the supper scene, in which Macbeth is haunted by 
the spectre of the murdered Banquo, and his reason appears 
unsettled by the extremity of his horror and dismay, her indignant 
rebuke, her low whispered remonstrance, the sarcastic emphasis 
with which she combats his sick fancies, and endeavors to recall 
him to himself, have an intenseness, a severity, a bitterness, which 
makes the blood creep. 

LADY MARBETO. 

Are you a man? 



LAD? MACBETH. 333 



Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that 
Which might appal the devil. 

LADY MACBETH. 

O proper stuff! 
This is the very painting of your fear: 
This is the air-drawn dagger, which you said 
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts 
(Impostors to true fear) would well become 
A woman's story at a winter's fire, 
Authoriz'd by her grandam ! Shame itself! 
Why do you make such faces ? When all 's done 
You look but on a stool. 

What ! quite unmann'd in folly ? 

Yet when the guests are dismissed, and they are left alone, 
site says no more, and not a syllable of reproach or scorn 
escapes her ; a few words in submissive reply to his questions, 
and an entreaty to seek repose, are all she permits herself to 
utter. There is a touch of pathos and of tenderness in this 
silence which has always affected me beyond expression ; it is 
one of the most masterly and the most beautiful traits of character 
in the whole play. 

Lastly, it is clear that in a mind constituted like that of Lady 
Macbeth, and not utterly depraved and hardened by the habit of 
crime, conscience must wake some time or other, and bring with it 
remorse closed by despair, and despair by death. This great moral 
retribution was to be displayed to us — but how 1 Lady Macbeth is 
not a woman to start at shadows ; she mocks at air-drawn daggers ; 
she sees no imagined spectres rise from the tomb to appal or accuse 
her.* The towering bravery of her mind disdains the visionary 
terrors which haunt her weaker husband. We know, or rather we 

*Mrs. Siddons, I believe, had an idea that Lady Macbeth beheld the spectre 
of Banquo in the supper scene, and that her self-control and presence of mind 
enabled her to surmount her consciousness of the ghastly presence. This would 
be superhuman, and I do not see that cither the character or the text bear out 
this supposition. 



334 L A D Y M A C B E T H . 

feel, that she who could give a voice to the most direful intent, and 
call on the spirits that wait on mortal thoughts to " unsex her," and 
" stop up all access and passage of remorse" — to that remorse would 
have given nor tongue nor sound ; and that rather than have uttered 
a complaint, she would have held her breath and died. To have 
given her a confidant, though in the partner of her guilt, would have 
been a degrading resource, and have disappointed and enfeebled all 
our previous impressions of her character ; yet justice is to be done, 
and we are to be made acquainted with that which the woman 
herself would have suffered a thousand deaths of torture rather than 
have betrayed. In the sleeping scene we have a glimpse into the 
depths of that inward hell : the seared brain and broken heart are 
laid bare before us in the helplessness of slumber. By a judgment 
the most sublime ever imagined, yet the most unforced, natural, and 
inevitable, the sleep of her who murdered sleep is no longer repose, 
but a condensation of resistless horrors which the prostrate intellect 
and the powerless will can neither baffle nor repel. We shudder 
and are satisfied ; yet our human sympathies are again touched : 
we rather sigh over the ruin than exult in it ; and after watching 
her through this wonderful scene with a sort of fascination, we 
dismiss the unconscious, helpless, despair-stricken murderess, with a 
feeling which Lady Macbeth, in her waking strength, with 
all her awe-commanding powers about her, could never have 
excited. 

It is here especially we perceive that sweetness of nature which 
in Shakspearc went hand in hand with his astonishing powers. 
He never confounds that line of demarcation which eternally separates 
good from evil, yet he never places evil before us without exciting 
in some way a consciousness of the opposite good which shall balance 
and relieve it. 

I do deny that he has represented in Lady Macbeth a woman 

" naturally cruel," * " invariably savage," f or endued with 

ire demoniac firmness. "% If ever there could have existed a 

woman to whom such phrases could apply — a woman without 

touch of modesty, pity or fear, — Shakspeare knew that a thing 

•Cumberland. irdson. t Furster's Essays. 



LADY MACBETH. 335 

so monstrous was unfit for all the purposes of poetry. If Lady 
Macbeth had been naturally cruel, she needed not so solemnly to 
have abjured all pity, and called on the spirits that wait on mortal 
thoughts to unsex her ; nor would she have been loved to excess 
by a man of Macbeth's character; for it is the sense of intellectual 
energy, and strength of will overpowering her feminine nature, 
which draws from him that burst of intense admiration — 

Bring forth men children only, 
For thy undaunted metal should compose 
Nothing but males. 

If she had been invariably savage, her love would not have 
comforted and sustained her husband in his despair, nor would her 
uplifted dagger have been arrested by a dear and venerable image 
rising between her soul and its fell purpose. If endued with pure 
demoniac firmness, her woman's nature would not, by the reaction, 
have been so horribly avenged, — she would not have died of remorse 
and despair. 

We cannot but observe, that through the whole of the dialogue 
appropriated to Lady Macbeth, there is something very peculiar 
and characteristic in the turn of expression; her compliments, when 
she is playing the hostess or the queen, are elaborately elegant 
and verbose : but when in earnest, she speaks in short energetic 
sentences — sometimes abrupt, but always full of meaning; her 
thoughts are rapid and clear, her expressions ■ forcible, and the 
imagery like sudden flashes of lightning : all the foregoing 
extracts exhibit this, but I will venture one more, as an immediate 
illustration. 



My dearest love, 
Duncan comes here to-night. 

LADT MACBETH. 

And when goes kenco 1 ? 



386 LADYMACBETH. 

MACBETH. 

To-morrow, — as he purposes. 

LADY MACBETH. 

O never 
Shall sun that morrow see ! 
Thy face, my Thane, is as a book, where men 
May read strange matters. To beguile the time, 
Look like the time, bear welcome in your eye, 
Your tongue, your hand ; look like the innocent flower, 
But be the serpent under it. 

What would not the firmness, the self-command, the enthusiasm, 
the intellect, the ardent affections of this woman have performed, if 
properly directed 1 But the object being unworthy of the effort, the 
end is disappointment, despair, and death. 

The power of religion could alone have controlled such a mind ; 
but it is the misery of a very proud, strong, and gifted spirit, 
without sense of religion, that instead of looking upward to find 
a superior, it looks round and sees all things as subject to itself. 
Lady Macbeth is placed in a dark, ignorant, iron age ; her 
powerful intellect is slightly tinged with its credulity and superstition, 
but she has no religious feeling to restrain the force of will. 
She is a stern fatalist in principle and action — "what is done, is. 
done," and would be done over again under the same circumstances; 
her remorse is without repentance, or any reference to an offended 
Deity ; it arises from the pang of a wounded conscience, the recoil 
of the violated feelings of nature ; it is the horror of the past, 
not the terror of the future ; the torture of self-condemnation, not 
the fear of judgment; it is strong as her soul, deep as her guilt, 
fatal as her resolve, and terrible as her crime. 

If it should be objected to this view of Lady Macbeth's 
character, that it engages our sympathies in behalf of a perverted 
being — and that to leave her so strong a power upon oui 
feelings, in the midst of such supreme wickedness, involves a 
moral wrong, I can only reply in the words of Dr. Channing, 
that " in this and the like cases, our interest fastens on what is 



LADY MACBETH. 337 

not evil in the character — that there is something kindling and 
ennobling in the consciousness, however awakened, of the energy 
which resides in mind; and many a virtuous man has borrowed 
new strength from the force, constancy, and dauntless courage of 
evil agents. " * 

This is true ; and might he not have added that many a powerful 
and gifted spirit has learnt humility and self-government, from 
beholding how far the energy which resides in mind may be 
degraded and perverted 1 

In general, when a woman is introduced into a tragedy, to be 
the presiding genius of evil in herself, or the cause of evil to 
others, she is either too feebly or too darkly portrayed ; either 
crime is heaped on crime, and horror on horror, till our sympathy 
is lost in incredulity, or the stimulus is sought in unnatural or 
impossible situations, or in situations that ought to be impossible 
(as in the Myrrha or the Cenci), or the character is enfeebled 
by a mixture of degrading propensities and sexual weakness, as in 
Vittoria Corombona. But Lady Macbeth, though so supremely 
wicked, and so consistently feminine, is still kept aloof from all 
base alloy. When Shakspeare created a female character purely 
detestable, he made her an accessory, never a principal. Thus 
Regan and Goneril are two powerful sketches of selfishness, cruelty 
and ingratitude; we abhor them whenever we see or think of 
them, but we think very little about them, except as necessary 
to the action of the drama. They are to cause the madness 
of Lear, and to call forth the filial devotion of Cordelia, and 
their depravity is forgotten in its effects. A comparison has 
been made between Lady Macbeth and the Greek Clytemnestra 
in the Agamemnon of Eschylus. The Clytemnestra of Sophocles 
is something more in Shakspeare's spirit, for she is something 
less impudently atrocious; but, considered as a woman and 
an individual, would any one compare this shameless adulteress, 



* See Dr. Channing's remarks on Satan, in his essay " On the Character and 
Writings of Milton."— Works, p. 131. 

43 



338 LADY MACBETH. 

cruel murderess, and unnatural mother, with Lady Macbeth 1 Lady 
Macbeth herself would certainly shrink from the approximation. * 

The Electra of Sophocles comes nearer to Lady Macbeth as a 
poetical conception, with this strong distinction, that she commands 
more respect and esteem, and less sympathy. The murder in 
which she participates is ordained by the oracle — is an act of 
justice, and therefore less a murder than a sacrifice. Electra is 
drawn with magnificent simplicity and intensity of feeling and 
(impose, but there is a want of light, and shade, and relief. 
Thus the scene in which Orestes stabs his mother within her 
chamber, and she is heard pleading for mercy, while Electra stands 
forward, listening cxultingly to her mother's cries, and urging her 
brother to strike again, " another blow ! another ! " &c, is terribly 
fine, but the horror is too shocking, too physical — if I may use 
such an expression : it will not surely bear a comparison with the 
murdering scene in Macbeth, where the exhibition of various 
passions — the irresolution of Macbeth, the bold determination of 
his wife, the deep suspense, the rage of the elements without, the 
horrid stillness within, and the secret feeling of that infernal 
agency which is ever present to the fancy, even when not visible 
on the scene — throw a rich coloring of poetry over the whole, 
which does not take from " the present horror of the time," and 
yet relieves it. Shakspeare's blackest shadows are like those of 
Rembrandt ; so intense, that the gloom which brooded over Egypt 
in her day of wrath was pale in comparison — yet so transparent 
that we seem to see the light of heaven through their depth. 

In the whole compass of dramatic poetry, there is but one 

* The vision of Clytemnestra the night before she is murdered, in which she 
dreams that she has given birth to a dragon, and that in laying it to her bosom, it 
draws blood instead of milk, has been greatly admired, but I suppose that those 
who most admire it would not place it in comparison with Lady Macbeth's sleeping 
scene. Lady Ashton, in the Bride of Lammermoor, is a domestic Lady Macbeth 
but the development being in the narrative, not the dramatic form, it follows hence 
that we have a masterly portrait, not a complete individual : and the relief of 
poetry and sympathy being wanting, the devastation she inspires is so unmixed as 
to be almost intolerable : consequently the character, considered in relation to the 
other personages of the story, is perfect; but abstractedly it is imperfect; a basso 
relievo — not a statue 



LADY MACBETH. 339 

female character which can be placed near that of Lady Macbeth; 
the Medea. Not the vulgar, voluble fury of the Latin Tragedy, * 
nor the Medea in a hoop petticoat of Corneille, but the genuine 
Greek Medea — the Medea of Euripides, f 

There is something in the Medea which seizes irresistibly 
on the imagination. Her passionate devotion to Jason, for whom 
she had left her parents and country — to whom she had given all, 
and 

Would have drawn the spirit from her breast 
Had he but asked it, sighing forth her soul 
Into his bosom,! 

the wrongs and insults which drive her to desperation — the horrid 
refinement of cruelty, with which she plans and executes her 
revenge upon her faithless husband — the gush of fondness with 
which she weeps over her children, whom in the next moment she 
devotes to destruction in a paroxysm of insane fury, carry the 
terror and pathos of tragic situation to their extreme height. But 
if we may be allowed to judge through the medium of a translation, 
there is a certain hardness in the manner of treating the character 
which in some degree defeats the effect. Medea talks too much ; 
her human feelings and superhuman power are not sufficiently 
blended. Taking into consideration the different impulses which 
actuate Medea and Lady Macbeth, as love, jealousy, and revenge 
on the one side, and ambition on the other, we expect to find 
more of female nature in the first than in the last : and yet 
the contrary is the fact: at least my own impression, as far as a 
woman may judge of a woman, is, that although the passions of 
Medea are more feminine, the character is less so : we seem to 
require more feeling in her fierceness, more passion in her frenzy ; 
something less of poetical abstraction, — less art, fewer words : her 



* Attributed to Seneca. 

t A comparison has already been made in an article in the " Reflector." It will 
be seen on a reference to that very masterly Essay, that I differ from the author in 
his conception of Lady Macbeth's character. 

X Apollonius Rhodius.— Vide Elton's Specimens of the Classic Poets. 



340 LADYMACBETH. 

delirious vengeance we might forgive, but her calmness and subtlety 
are rather revolting. 

These two admirable characters, placed in contrast to each other, 
afford a fine illustration of Schlegel's distinction between the 
ancient or Greek drama, which he compares to sculpture, and the 
modern or romantic drama, which he compares to painting. The 
gothic grandeur, the rich chiaroscuro, and deep-toned colors of 
Lady Macbeth, stand thus opposed to the classical elegance and 
mythological splendor, the delicate yet inflexible outline of the 
Medea. If I might be permitted to carry this illustration still 
further, I would add, that there exists the same distinction between 
the Lady Macbeth and the Medea, as between the Medusa of 
Leonardo da Vinci and the Medusa of the Greek gems and bas- 
reliefs. In the painting the horror of the subject is at once 
exalted and softened by the most vivid coloring and the most 
magical contrast of light and shade. We gaze — until from the 
murky depths of the back-ground, the serpent-hair seems to 
stir and glitter as if instinct with life, and the head itself, in 
all its ghastliness and brightness, appears to rise from the 
canvass with the glare of reality. In the Medusa of sculpture 
how different is the effect on the imagination! We have here 
the snakes convolving round the winged and graceful head : the 
brows contracted with horror and pain ; but every feature is 
chiselled into the most regular and faultless perfection, and amid 
the gorgon terrors, there rests a marbly, fixed, supernatural grace, 
which, without reminding us for a moment of common life or 
nature, stands before us a presence, a power, and an enchantment ! 



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